


The undone and the divine

by Marion1121



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marion1121/pseuds/Marion1121
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you can hide things from yourself incredibly well. But what if you figure them out? Will you be able to stuff them back into that box inside of your mind and close it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: The open box

**Author's Note:**

> I know this fic isn't about the main ship of this fandom. I hope that I won't receive any flames. If you don't like to read it, just ignore it. I don't wanna make anyone feel bad because their ship doesn't sale in my story. (that said...there is plenty of Flo/Isa friendship waiting for you, because I love them :D ) 
> 
> For those not familiar with Real People fanfics: I don't believe anything I write in this story is true or that they would behave like this in real life. I just enjoy making scenarios up that involve them, that's all. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading :) And of course all atoms of my body are desperately waiting for feedback ;)

Today was one of these days. Flo sat in the living room of her new house, alone, which was never a good idea. But since she had to face being an adult, someone who should be able to handle herself on her own, she decided that today her only company would be her funny mind. On those days she would normally read a book, listen to some euphoric music and twirl around the house in a weird yet exceptional mindset.  
Or, which was the case today, look at some of the evil boxes inside her brain. Those were there to collect every awkward, scary thing that had ever happened to her. This time however it wasn’t something she did when she was six years old but rather a recent memory: Her hanging out at a party with a pretty intrusive chick who ended up asking her questions about Rob. Retrospectively she assumed that the girl had been one of these people who desperately look for a little adventure with a famous person and think they are incredibly smart if they try to get through to their object of affection by simply being nice to one of his friends. Usually it was Flo they wanted to get through to. This time though it had been her who had to realize that her conversation partner was more interested in making side remarks about her guitarist’s hotness than in their discussion. She took it with good humor, constantly exchanging ironic glares with Rob, letting him know that if she let this girl lose, he’d have some extra weight attached to his hips for the rest of the evening. 

“So you haven’t even snogged once?” The girl’s voice echoed in her head once again, shrill and excited and kind of squeaky.  
“No!” She heard her quick lie, coming out of her mouth like a gunshot.  
And there it had been, the stupid feeling. She hadn’t wondered why the girl who didn’t know her even had had the nerve to ask her this. Instead she had remembered a blurry, weird moment, something that had occurred years back, under the influence of a ton of alcohol, obviously. And she had felt so terribly caught when Rob had given her one of these “Please keep that chick away from me or I’m going to empty an entire beer barrel on top of your head” kind of glares. Her face had turned bright red, she had quickly said goodbye to the girl, not really caring if she’d cling herself to Rob’s arse for the next ten hours. She had left the room heading for the terrace, grabbing Isa on her way out, who had promptly spilled her drink on Chris. She had babbled something about being annoyed and feeling imprisoned and needing some air. Isa had given Chris a “you know, it’s one of her moments”- looks through the terrace door. Then her best friend had sat her down on a bench and made her sing a trashy pop song from the 90s. It had helped, as always. 

The feeling though…it had dug itself a little hole in one of her boxes. And now it was roaming in her skull, telling her she was a totally fucked up person for snogging one of her best friends. No matter how drunk. No matter other people did the same thing. Or that she herself had done it with other people…  
What made things worse was that before this girl had asked her the question, she had shoved it aside as one of many drinking adventures. Now though she was looking at her reflection in one of her huge, framed mirrors…and wondered why she had only snogged him once. And that was a stupid, stupid thing to wonder about because it made her restless. This meant she wanted to stand up to visit him and ask him if he had ever wondered about the same thing. Her eyes grew wide and she gave herself her best “Flo, you’re a twat” look through the mirror.  
Without warning she almost fell from her chair. At first she didn’t realize why but then she noticed the phone was ringing. And there she had thought it had been just a bird singing inside her head.  
“Isa?” she said, after grabbing her phone from the table, still lying in a fetal position on the floor.  
“Nah, it’s Misrabella, the vampire, craving for blood…who else would call from my phone?”  
“Oh…I’m on the floor, I’m sorry” She said, sounding like a confused grandmother.  
“O-okay…whatever dear, I know it’s your “I’m staying indoors and read the same book for the 2oth time” day…But the boys just called me. And they asked if they could invite themselves over to your place for an epic, scary as fuck horror movie night. I figured since you wanna stay indoors, why not with us? Huh? What do you say?”  
During Isa’s little speech Flo had sat up. She swallowed hard. Normally she would’ve said yes in a second. Now though there were two voices whispering to her. One said she should have a horror movie night with Robert Ackroyd and undress him in the process. Her consciousness beat her up for that one, wondering where the hell it was coming from. The second voice said she should have a horror movie night with Isa, just feeling totally comfortable and not thinking about weird stuff. And then there was her cowardly self that wanted to say no and bury herself in weirdness for some more hours, alone of course.  
“Still there? Why are you on the floor anyways? Did you fall?” She could hear some worry in Isa’s voice, in between the “jeez, Flo, don’t tell me you hurt yourself again while trying to…I don’t know, breathe…” - sound and quickly jumped up, as if Isa could see she was fine.  
“I’m there, yes. Er…well, why not, I’m bored anyway.” The words quickly left her mouth and she was somewhat relieved they did because otherwise she might’ve come up with a silly excuse. And Isa would’ve probably turned up anyway, knowing something was wrong with her.  
“Awesome. I’ll come by in an hour, if that’s alright.”  
“Sure, you can come here anytime anyway”  
“I know that. But you seem…I don’t know, slightly off.”  
“I’m okay. I am not on the floor anymore, by the way.”  
“Cool, well done, you can get up from the floor. I’m really proud of you. But I gotta hurry now, sweetheart. See you.”  
And gone she was. Flo looked down at her feet. She was wearing big fluffy socks and was still in her PJs. She figured she had to put something else on, so she scuffed towards her bedroom, humming cheerfully while pretty morbid lyrics formed inside her head.


	2. It's not as bad as it seems in your head

Flo was having a staring contest with her mirror image when she heard a key opening the front door. The right corner of her mouth went down and she left the mirror alone with a grimace.  
“Wuah, someone here’s looking quite spectacular for an indoor night!” exclaimed Isa as she approached her best friend, carrying a basket so big Flo wasn’t sure whether it was weighting more or less than Isa. So she quickly jumped towards her and helped her maneuvering that thing into the kitchen.  
“Seriously, are you thinking about opening a restaurant with that stuff?” Flo laughed, looking through the tons of food in front of her. She quickly grabbed a bag of cookies, opened it and slit one into her mouth, handing some more to Isa.  
“Nah, I just figured you probably forgot to go shopping and since we don’t live of love and air as you do…”  
“Love, yeah, right…”  
“Oh, come on, before you start complaining to me about your love life, think about the disaster that is mine.”  
Flo nodded, but compared to the last time they had their usual conversation about having to live together in an old ladies flat, another weird problem had joined her list of things that helped her making her own life miserable. She wondered if she should tell Isa before the boys arrived. She stared at her for a minute, her mouth half open.  
“What’s up with you, you look like a frozen fish?”  
“Er, nothing…nothing…I was just wondering if we should…prepare something a little nice looking for the boys.”  
“You mean hang up dark robes, lit black candles and put red lights into your lamps? I thought about that, but then…it’s just us, it’s not like we’re having a party.”  
“Hm…okay then…” Flo mused, realizing she had thought about something completely different, like making her living room look more romantic, for a night with Isa and the boys. Just a month ago that would’ve sounded completely absurd to her.  
“Come on then, let’s get through some records til they arrive” Isa dragged Flo out of the kitchen into the living room and they sat down on the sofa. Isa was opening a drawer next to it and took out a couple of CDs. Flo sat next to her with her hands in her lap, playing with her rings.  
“I’m feeling weird” she said, trying to control the sweating of her hands. She wanted to take a look at the CDs with Isa, pick something out but she couldn’t. All she could think about was the fact that she would have to face Rob for the first time since this had stupidity started. She wanted to stand up and jump through the window, not thinking about the floor she’d fall down and the bones she’d certainly break doing so, and run like a fugitive.  
Isa sighed, put down the stack of CDs next to her and took Flo’s hand. “Look, I know something’s been up with you for the last couple of days. But I also know that if you wanna talk to me about it, you will. Since you didn’t, I thought it would be a good idea to go with plan B, which is to distract you, hence this little evening today…”  
“Oh…I thought I had kept it to myself” Flo mumbled, feeling slightly caught.  
“Come on, Sweety, it’s not like I know you better than my own siblings…”  
Flo laughed, relieved, she figured she was safe, even if she told Isa she was in love with an oak tree, she’d probably just nod and try to make her feel alright about it.  
“Well, actually I feel like telling you, because I guess I need someone to guide me through the evening.”  
“Guide you through a horror movie night? Is it that bad?” Isa’s eyes grew the size of plates but before Flo could say anything further the doorbell rang.  
“Fuck” was the only word that left Flo’s mouth and Isa laughed.  
“Relax, dear. It’s just the boys and horror films. I bet you’ll forget whatever is bothering you in a minute. You know how they can cheer you up.”  
Yes, they normally could. Yet Flo wasn’t sure whether she would feel incredibly better or incredibly worse after opening the front door. Thus her movements were unusually slow when she got up from the couch. Isa stopped her for a second and gave her a calm look. “You can slap me if I’m wrong but I bet it’s not as bad as it seems in your head” A soft smile formed on Flo’s face as she nodded. “You’re probably right.” Her posture quickly became different and she tried to reach the door in some quick little jumps as she would normally do when in a good mood. She grabbed the handle almost forcefully and opened the door. And there they were, Rob and Chris, smiling at her in a slightly silly manner. Before she could react, Rob gave her a big, warm hug. She automatically put her arms around him and stroked his back slightly. It felt good and not at all uncomfortable or awkward. She sighed. She’d be alright, she had just been silly.


	3. The science of horror movies

When four seemingly adult people make a horror movie night it automatically involves a certain amount of liquor. In this case it was a collection of open bottles Flo had left from her housewarming parties. They were all sitting on the huge vintage sofa across the TV, staring, each of them with a glass in their hands. Among them were four types of horror movie watchers. Type one, Chris, always seemed slightly bored and if a monster had jumped right out of the television, he would’ve probably taken it down with one move without wondering what it was doing there. Type two, Isa, pretended to deeply enjoy horror movies to the point of not being scared whatsoever even though she almost peed in her pants. Type three, Rob, seemed to know every detail about each film and could point out to you how exactly they managed to make this smashed head look real or fake. Type two and three would often look at each other when a limb was cut off in a perfectly gruesome or perfectly unrealistic way and laugh out loudly. And then there was type four, Flo, who got so god damn scared that she looked away from the screen often enough to find the time to divide her and her friends into categories. 

“Flo, if you ask me again what the movie was about later, I’ll kick your arse.” Isa mumbled while giving Flo a nudge. Her best friend turned her head towards the TV directly, pretending she had been following every detail that had happened.   
“Oh, I was…I was looking. I was just…I’m not scared!” She exclaimed.   
“Yeah right, like the last 20 times when you were hiding underneath a blanket or behind a pillow or behind one of us!”   
“Yeah, and like the last 20 times you were just as freaked out about the movie as I was, and you couldn’t sleep!” Flo gave Isa a side glance, pretending to be offended, while Isa acted like she had no idea how Flo could even suggest she had lost a minute of sleep after any horror movie.   
“Well, at least Isa did watch the movie. I have no idea why you could not sleep.” Rob leaned towards Flo and winked. She remembered how she had hidden her head behind his back two weeks ago while trying to break Isa’s hand by gripping it like a person hanging from a cliff.   
“I listened to it though! And I think if you just hear it it’s like…a lot more scary because you can imagine all kinds of horrible things that might be happening!”  
“Alright, girl, let’s do an experiment. You look straight at the TV til this is finished. No glance left, none right, none down and no objects in front of your eyes. And then we’ll see how scared you really get.” Rob’s face was now directly opposite hers and she could feel his breath on her mouth.   
“Hm…okay, if you think I’m such a wuss, I gotta prove otherwise, right? I mean I’m kind of the head of this band. You gotta know I have some balls, too!” She said filled with self-amusement.   
“Yeah, by this point we only know you could defend us screaming like a banshee in a cape. But we need to feel save in general, right Chris?”  
“Oh sure, whenever I get scared, my arms just turn to jelly, we definitively need your help” The big beardy guy said dryly, faking a very concerned face.   
Flo nodded demonstratively, crossed her arms and turned her head towards the TV. She tried to impersonate a queen-like figure and lifted her chin slightly, looking arrogantly at the top of the screen. Isa stretched out her hand fast and put it in front of Flo’s face. That caused a defensive reaction from her best friend who tried to pull her arm away with all her force. Unfortunately though Isa was stronger than Flo.-a fact the latter didn’t like to admit, since she always beat her in fights due to the height difference. Isa leaned towards Rob, while Flo mumbled words like she had an octopus attached to their face.   
“Before you start this, Rob…if she freaks, you have to spend the night with her, not me!” Flo instinctively sank her teeth into Isa’s hands when she heard that. She could not goddamn leave her with someone else when she was acting like a silly kid afraid of the dark! Rob would most likely pee himself laughing and never take her seriously again. Isa ignored her plead for release.   
“I’d happily oblige, it can’t be that bad to bring little Flo to bed.” Rob laughed to himself and padded Flo’s head.   
“Oh, you have NO idea!” Isa’s huge eyes shone in an over- dramatic way and she let out a sigh, demonstrating how Flo’s sleeping habits apparently made her suffer.   
“I just wanna point out that I’m not making you guys any coffee next morning if you stay awake with our little pussycat over here.” Chris leaned back and put his arms behind his head in a relaxed, non-caring manner.   
Flo let out an energetic mumble again and Isa finally freed her.   
“You won’t have to. Either we stay up til morning anyway or I will sleep like a puppy because this is so not scary at all, yeah.” She babbled in the fastest way possible to convince herself of her words, nodded and retook her previous aristocratic position.   
The other three tried to hide their laughs and pretended to watch the movie as if it wasn’t more interesting to see Flo’s reactions.   
Flo’s competitive side - which mostly just came out while trying to win silly bets and do useless stuff well- was deeply concentrated.   
It went well for about 10 minutes. She tried to count objects in the back of the screen instead of watching what was actually going on. When it happened she had already counted ten vases, three paintings she would buy and a goldfish. Just when she began wondering if she could ever write a song about a goldfish, it all went to hell.   
First, there was a scary sound. Then there was something on the screen she couldn’t see because she paid attention to the horribly ugly couch in the background. And then there suddenly was a piercing scream. And that scream came so unexpected that she jumped onto the couch, ran behind Rob’s back, almost suffocate him with her hands in an attempt to comfort herself and then lost her balance due to the alcohol in her blood. She fell behind the couch and got stuck between it and the wall.   
Two of the remaining figures on the couch looked at each other completely confused. Had she just…? Chris though was laughing so hard he spit half of his drink on the floor. This is when the other two realized it had been him. Rob hit his head with the back of his hand. “You douche” He started laughing as well and gave him a high five. Isa got up first and stuck her head over the backrest. Flo lay sideways between the couch and the wall. “Wh-what was that?” she whispered.   
“That was just Chris’ brilliant imitation of a screaming girl, sillyhead. Did you hurt yourself?”  
“Oh…” Flo sighed. That had to be the most stupid way of embarrassing herself ever. At least the most stupid one she could remember. She touched her head, realizing it hurt quite a bit.   
“Thinking you were clever counting the vases, heh?” Chris said, also sticking his head over the couches’ back. “…Are you okay though? Didn’t expect you to go all girly and try to escape through your living room wall.”  
“I…I…guess” She tried to move but then realized there wasn’t enough space, she only slit down a little more. “But I’m kinda stuck. This is really stupid.” She started to giggle at her own situation. Sometimes she was just so stupidly brilliant.   
They all started laughing along with her until Flo made a face that showed how uncomfortable she was. They managed to stop their laughing flash.   
“Maybe we should move the…” But before Isa could finish the sentence, Rob already leaned over the backrest, wrapped his big hands around Flo’s waist and pulled her up. He lifted her over the sofa and put her back on her feet next to it.   
“Wow, I forgot we have a knight among us” exclaimed Isa and looked at Rob with respect.   
“Oh well, that was the least I could do to calm her down. If she had stayed in this position the entire night, my job of making her sleep would have been impossible…”  
“Oh, so you accept the challenge and I can sleep on my own for once?”  
“Sure, come on…I’m a big man. I’ll have her under control.”  
Flo looked from one friend to the other and her mouth formed a thin smile.   
“Can we continue watching now? I really wanna know how this monster looked like…”  
“Good luck with her, bro” Chris nodded towards Rob and sat down again. Once they had all settled, he leaned over to his friend once again and whispered. “You’re welcome, by the way.” Rob only rolled his eyes.


	4. In bed with Robert Ackroyd

Flo was lying on her bed, wrapped entirely into her blanket. Her fingers were tipping rhythms on her mattress. It would’ve been impossible to pretend she wasn’t nervous. She was also pretty damn sure that Isa had been absolutely aware of what this meant to her. Sleeping was one of her weakest points. She just wasn’t good at it. From nightmares, to sleep paralysis, to not being able to sleep out of fear of God knows what. As much as she loved sleeping in the same room or even bed with other people, it was only when she was comfortable enough for them to see how she acted during nights. Rob hadn’t seen any of this yet and she was damn glad about that. She didn’t want this to change any time soon, especially not now that her mind was driving her crazy, constantly sending her weird thoughts when he was near. Of course Isa was not aware of THAT. Otherwise she would not have done this. Or would she? Flo remembered a talk between her and her best friend not too long ago, when Isa had suggested that it wouldn’t be the worst idea to face her fears a little at times. Flo had gotten pretty mad during this discussion, telling Isa that she faced a truckload of her fears every day without a blink and that there were some she couldn’t handle to deal with yet. Isa had let her get away with this on that day. But what would her friend do now if she sneaked out of her room into the guest bedroom and told her that she wanted to hide from Rob like a twelve year old schoolgirl?

Just when this idea crossed Flo’s mind, Rob appeared in the doorway. A slightly devilish grin was on his face but Flo’s glare automatically wandered up and down his body to stop at his muscular legs that were now fully visible since he was only wearing boxers.   
“Satisfied with my outfit?” He asked, leaning against the doorframe in his usual suave pose.  
Flo’s eyes quickly went down to her blanket. She felt how her face was heating up, praying she didn’t turn red. “Oh…err…nice shorts” She commented, wondering when she started feeling so ashamed for checking him out. It wasn’t like she didn’t do it before. Who could blame her anyway? He was a damn handsome guy. A quick glance at his bum here, checking out his biceps there…it wasn’t a crime. Was it?  
“Good. I wouldn’t have had a spare pair with me…” Flo barely heard him speak. She was so preoccupied sorting out her weird reaction to him that she didn’t even notice when he started running towards her bed.   
The mattress bended with a heavy motion when he hit it. Flo jumped up in slight shock, forced to lift her eyes and look at the tall guy stretched out next to her. She started laughing. He was staring at her, his head resting on his palm, smiling like he was enjoying a day at the spa. “Hm, perfection. I think I’ll sleep like a baby” Rob mumbled, closing his eyes. He looked like a little boy and an adoring smile formed on Flo’s face automatically.   
“I hope I won’t keep you from sleeping” She said, making a grimace she knew he couldn’t see.   
“Ah, don’t worry, you know I sleep like a rock.” Silence fell on them for a second. Flo thought about switching the light off but she was not sure if it was the right time. The right time? It was three in the morning and they were in a bed to sleep, why the hell could it be the wrong time to switch the light off?  
“You’re okay with this, though?” He suddenly asked, his eyes back open, sinking into hers and she sighed without wanting it. Then she became aware he had actually asked her something.   
“Okay with what?” She asked back, slightly confused.   
“Us sleeping in bed together.”  
“W-what? Why shouldn’t I be okay with that? We’ve done it before, haven’t we?” This feeling of being caught creeped back into her and she wanted to strangle it. Flo, get a freakin’ grip!  
“Well, that wasn’t exactly us. There were always at least three other people involved…”  
“Then that literary was a gang bang. So just the two of us together isn’t really a big deal…” She mused, remembering the old days when the entire band would often simply collapse in one hotel room after a night out. She was slightly sad they didn’t do that anymore. “So no, you don’t have to give me a talk about your hands staying far away from me. It’s not like you’d want them anywhere scandalous anyway, right?” Her mouth formed these words so quickly that her brain had a hard time realizing what she had just said.   
“Oh, of course not, we both know you’re as unattractive as they come…” He winked at her with a smirk and she rolled her eyes at him in a playful manner.   
“Ever the charmer…”  
“I do my best” He ran his hand through his hair, pretending to look seductive and she was glad he had no idea what had been roaming inside her head for the past couple of minutes.   
“So, you wanna turn off the lights or are you scared?” He pinched her slightly in the arm and she quickly hit the light switch.   
“Wow, that was fast, I didn’t even have time to look for monsters underneath your bed…you sure you can take it?” He kept teasing her with the most charming of voices and she smiled to herself in the dark.   
“I am a big girl”  
“Now that’s news. You know, Isa told us this story about…”  
“Shut it! Isa’s just making up stuff…You know, last time after we watched this movie she didn’t sleep the entire night and kept cuddling me. She just has a big mouth!” Flo didn’t want him to think she was scared of the dark like a child. The fact that she actually was scared of the dark didn’t matter at this point. He would never find out anyway that she, for the times she had to sleep alone, kept a little lamp next to her bed that she could switch on to make the weird shapes in the dark room appear less scary. Isa was the only person who knew that she still did this anyway.   
“Alright, alright, you’re the tough one, I get it. But in case you get scared to death, you can wake me. I would fight with any monster, even imaginary ones.”  
“I’m alright, I swear.” She said quickly, even though the thought of him protecting her suddenly seemed very appealing.  
“Good night then, tough Flo.”  
“Good night, brave Rob.” They both giggled for a second but became silent after a minute. There was no sound whatsoever in the room and Flo concentrated on the rhythm pattern of his breathing subconsciously. She stopped when she became aware and tried to think of something else. It didn’t quite work. She felt so stiff and awkward. Not because he was next to her, that made her feel the contrary in fact but rather because she feared her sleeping habits would play a trick on her and reveal a piece of her vulnerability to him that she wasn’t keen to show him.   
“Rob?” She whispered, hoping he wasn’t asleep yet.   
“Hm?” A deep mumbling sound came from his pillow.   
“If I wake up screaming, just…just ignore it.” Her voice was half cracking, she felt embarrassed but had to get this out, so that he was at least prepared.  
At first, she only heard him sighing but then she could see his silhouette slightly lifting from the pillow.  
“Come on…” His voice was unusually soft and she felt him moving closer to her and suddenly his hand ran across her forearm. “You don’t have to pretend anything in front of me, alright? I’ve known you since ages, it’s not like you’ll shock me.”  
“I just…I don’t wanna bother you.” She said shyly, feeling the burning sensation on the spot where his hand was in contact with her skin.  
“You’re acting as if friends are only there when someone’s being awesome…”  
“Some are”  
“Not me. Come on, I’ve seen you in so many situations and you’ve seen me…like in the worst states possible. I hope we are beyond wondering what the other one thinks of us?”  
“Yes, yes …. But I’m rather uncomfortable about this. My sleep is…a weird state… you don’t know how weird. And actually I was…I was quite mad at Isa for suggesting any of this.”  
“Isa probably trusts me, how about that? And maybe she wanted you to figure out it’s not as bad as you think.”  
“Yeah, she always wants me to figure that out.”  
“Then give yourself a chance. Just…close your eyes and sleep. If something’s wrong, I’ll wait with a sword to save you, okay?”  
“Okay” She sighed and did as he asked. Her breathing started to slow down. His hand was still on her arm when she fell asleep. A slight smile formed on Rob’s face when he noticed how peaceful she looked. He liked watching her sleep. There was something so innocent and calm about her. It was hard to believe that she was tormented by nightmares so often. He wished this was different for at least this night.


	5. Clowns and Monsters

When Flo woke up, she felt something rough and hard underneath her. Confusion took her over. This wasn’t her bed! In panic she opened her eyes and saw a weird smiley face staring at her. When she realized she had wrapped her arm around a creepy looking clown figure that was lying next to her, she jumped up, stumbled away from the dark mattress underneath her. She landed on the dusty stone floor. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard it was painful, she started sweating. Where the hell was she? Almost paralyzed by fear it took her minutes to look around the room. It was bleak; the only furniture was the mattress with this creepy clown on it. The walls were made of old wood and there was only one small, dirty window. Traces of sunlight found their way through the dirt. Dust was shimmering where the light touched it. She tried to listen, hoping to hear the familiar traffic sound that could assure her she was still in London or in some civilized place. But there was nothing. Just wind rattling at the wooden walls. She felt panic rising in her chest. “Calm down, Flo, calm down. If you’ve been abducted, freaking out won’t help you!” She tried counting down from hundred, tried to control her breathing. Silent humming became the only noise around her. It was her own voice trying to comfort her with a Backstreet Boys song she had danced to with Isa. Isa! And Rob! And Chris! Where the hell were they? If someone took her, they must’ve crossed them. Especially Rob! He had been sleeping next to her; he would’ve beaten her kidnappers and broken their bones! And Isa and Chris would’ve heard that. And they would’ve attacked them too, even Isa, because she would never let anyone hurt Flo. Oh my God, what if they hurt them? Or took them too? “Calm down, calm down, you need to freaking function now, if not normally, then at least now!” Flo stood up and turned around. Suddenly she spotted a door. It was in a dark corner where the small amount of light coming from the window couldn’t reach it. Trembling and way too slowly she walked towards it. She almost stepped on something but before taking the next step she discovered a letter on the floor. She sank to her knees and picked it up. It seemed rather clean, new. Someone had probably left it for her! She swallowed hard. Whatever was in there, it probably wouldn’t be good. But she had to read it carefully, without too much panic. Maybe it would give her a clue to who did this to her. She held her breath when she ripped the envelope open. Her hands were shaking so much it was difficult for her to even get the small sheet of paper out. She unfolded it, feeling dizzy. The message was blurry at first, so she stood up and walked towards the window. She almost stumbled when she recognized the handwriting. It was Isa’s. 

“Hello Florence,   
So you’ve woken up. Good. You finally managed to do something on your own. You were probably screaming for us when you discovered you were alone, whining like a baby. Well, you should get used to that. We are done. I’m fed up with your childish, silly behavior. Honestly, I’ve never felt like your best friend. Only like your babysitter. For the money…it was alright to hang out with you and clean up your mess for a while but I’ve had enough. I’m independent. I can work in America now, I don’t need you slowing me down with your stupid fears and irritating boring ramblings.   
Rob wants to let you know that he feels the same. He’s never liked you anyway; always saw you as an annoying kid that could unfortunately sing well. And when he figured out you had the hots for him? He couldn’t stop laughing. As if a dude who can have Katy Perry would even consider screwing your bony pale ass, seriously girl, what were you thinking? I can happily announce though that he, just like Chris, will stick with me. Yes, we’ve decided that from now on we will be The Machine. No one is going to miss you anyway. Getting a new singer won’t be too difficult. Mairead is already preparing castings. Yep, that’s right. She’s had enough of you too.   
So, there you go. Maybe your family is going to take you back. They have no real choice anyway, seeing they’re related to you.   
But before thinking about running back into your mommy’s arms, you should concentrate on getting back to England. This alone should be hilarious as fuck, since you are so bloody useless!   
Can’t believe I wasted so much time writing you this letter. I should’ve just let you rot, never understanding what happened. But sometimes you gotta get things off your chest, you know?

See you never again  
Isabella (not Isa…hah, why should you of all people be allowed to call me by my nickname?)”

Flo dropped the letter and stepped back from it as if it were a lion trying to eat her. This couldn’t be true. This had to be fake. Someone was playing with her. No way in hell would Isa write any of this? No way in hell would they all leave her alone? This had to be bullshit, it had to! Desperately she ran towards the door and tore it open. Hot wind blew into her face, tiny needles seemed to cut it and her bare legs. The sun shone so bright she couldn’t see anything at first. Then it hit her like a lightening…There was sand. And there were dunes. And there was nothing. She was in the middle of the desert! She turned around. The clown’s creepy smile dug a hole into her skull. She started to scream. 

She fell and hit the ground. Cold polished parquet. Completely irritated and still screaming from the inside, she tried to stand up but hit a bookshelf and a copy of Opposed Positions fell on her head. The book landed on the floor in front of her and when the pale face from the cover stared at her, looking the same as always, she realized where she was.   
“Flo, what, what’s happening?” Rob’s voice sounded sleepy and confused, almost like he was talking in his sleep. His head soon appeared on the edge of the bed. His hair was rumpled and his eyes looked tiny, still half closed. The amount of relief that swept over her was immense. She should’ve known it. All of this had been too crazy, too horrible to be anywhere close to reality. But this is what makes dreams so tricky, you could be followed by a heard of cucumbers hungry for human flesh and you’d never question it. And this had happened to her more than once!  
“I…I…” She was still shaking and her voice didn’t work properly. She cursed herself for it. In fact she wanted to tell him how happy she was to see him. How relived she was that he was here, with her and had not left. Flo turned around quickly and looked past the bookshelf. It gave her a clear view into the guest room, where Isa lay underneath a giant pillow. She could see her breathing. Flo nodded, smiling. It was okay. Nobody had left her.   
Rob suddenly stood up. His long legs appeared next to Flo on the edge of the bed. He slid down and sat down next to her.   
“You’re okay?” He wrapped one arm around her and drew her a bit closer, stroking her back. “You are as cold as ice, Welch. That must’ve been one crazy ass dream…”  
“It’s…it’s nothing…” She tried to stand up, suddenly feeling crazily embarrassed. If it had been Isa, she would’ve just started babbling, waiting to hear her say it was all bullshit and just another dream. Rob though…she didn’t want him to see her as weak. The words from Isa’s fantasy letter creped their way back into her thoughts. Silly kid. Bony, pale ass. She wanted to jump. Rob’s strong arms didn’t let her though. As a result her face ended up even closer to his. While staring at his eyes, trying to ignore her heartbeat, she wondered what he actually thought about her. Not as clumsy, funny Flo but as a woman. She had never wondered about that. No, that wasn’t exactly true, she hadn’t wondered about this for a very long time. So why now, why? The expression on his face was full of care though, not as if he wanted to make fun of her.   
“I guess it wasn’t just the monster then?”  
“No…it…wasn’t”  
“Seriously, you can tell me. Apparently I am a good listener. Nah, really, don’t look at me like that.” She had raised her eyebrows at his remark and quickly dropped them again. Her hands started playing with her sleeping gown. Sharing jokes with him was one thing, being on crazy adventures and experiencing crazy things…that was normal. Opening up though…that wasn’t something she did easily. Not in a serious manner anyway. Never had she talked to him about her insecurities or fears. That had always, always been someone else’s burden to bear. Mostly Isa’s. Looking back at her dream she wished it weren’t so. She wished she was free of problems and an easy company.   
“Have you ever been afraid of…being left alone?” She whispered, directly scanning his face for a negative reaction. Instead his face became serious.   
“I think we are all afraid of that sometimes. Even I. I might be kind of irresistible for women” he winked and she smiled, silently agreeing. “But…in all seriousness…you never know where you’ll be in a couple of years.”  
Flo was surprised. She had never thought about him worrying or things tormenting him. That didn’t fit. He was Rob, the suave gentleman, relaxed and always in control.   
“I…I am kind of wondering what will happen. In some years we will maybe stop making music. Together. And how will that change us? Will we still hang around? I kind of figured that Isa probably would …stick around with me, I mean. Cause…Cause we are best friends…forever, at least I think so. But what about Chris? Tom? Mark? Rusty? Sam…Mairead? And…what about you?”  
Rob smiled, shaking his head. He took her hand and buried it deeply in his much bigger one.   
“First…I don’t see why we should stop making music together. It’s what we do. And second…I know Isa and you are Siamese twins and the rest of us can’t really keep up with that but that doesn’t mean we don’t care. Honestly Flo, it’s not just about music. In fact, I like you a lot…really a lot. And when Summers is gonna stick around, I will too…I will find myself some space in your old ladies apartment, I promise.” The expression in his eyes was so real and honest that she almost teared up. That was probably the biggest emotional speech she had ever heard from him and in fact she just wanted to caress his face and kiss him, and wanted him to stay around. For a really long time. They both started to smile. They looked at each other in silence, for an awkwardly long time and just smiled. Flo instinctively leaned closer and she was about to close her eyes, when he stood up.   
“I think we should try sleeping a little more, don’t ya think? See, the sun’s already rising…” Instead of answering Flo just stared at him awkwardly silent. The parts of her skin where his body had touched hers felt so terribly cold and left alone. What the hell had that been?   
“Er…okay…” She said after seemingly minutes and slowly got back on her feet. When she was in the middle of standing up, he grabbed her hand and helped her.   
“You better have some good dreams now” He said, smiling and still holding her hand. She didn’t want to let go and he helped her by breaking the contact, otherwise she would’ve stood there for the next two hours just staring at his lovely face and enjoying the feeling of her hand in his. This was so fucked up all of a sudden. For a second she considered going to the guest bedroom and crawl back into her usual comfort zone, being calmed down by Isa. This however would make all of it even more awkward, so she ended up in bed with Robert Ackroyd again. Unfortunately without having any scandalous story to tell the next morning.


	6. The definition of "floish"

When Rob woke up the next morning, he had to smile immediately. Flo was spread across most of the bed, one of her legs across his, her arms hugging his and her hair laying across her pillow in complete chaos. The best part was the slight smile on her face though. She looked so adorable and young and beautiful. He kept himself from brushing a strand of red hair out of her face. Instead his look wandered down her body, the slight curves of her breasts and hips. His exploration ended by following her endless legs, as usually covered in bruises, which instead of making them look less appealing, made her look real. He sighed. She was one goddamn gorgeous woman. There were many sides to her. One was the talented artist that had blown him away from the very first moment he listened to her sing. Another was her girlish, funny and sometimes dorky personality that evoked a unique feeling in him, like there was only one of her kind in the entire world. Then there was a dirty and slightly dark, destroying side which sometimes scared him but had intrigued him more often than he wanted to admit. And overall she was Flo, just Flo. Floish in every way imaginable. What floish actually meant to him he did not know. When he first met her, he thought she was crazy. Crazy but cute, in a way. He remembers seeing her as a little girl, even though she had not been that much younger than him. Her way of seeing the world though, so innocent and full of wonder had fooled him. But the more time you spend with her, the deeper she got. They had always flirted, kind of. There had always been sexual tension and the need to touch each other a little more than necessary. He had never put much thought into it. It was fun and without any consequences. Some people had teased him about it though, especially Chris. Constantly pointing out that Flo had a soft spot for him. And complaining that Flo didn’t sit on his lap all the time. Or that she hugged Rob without any reason way more often than Chris. Rob had just rolled his eyes at it. It was just the way they were. Recently though and last night had only made him more suspicious, something had changed. It seemed like Flo was shy around him. Something she had only been way in the beginning, ages ago. She hadn’t cracked silly sex jokes; she had not played along with the bantering game he had wanted to start when he had entered her bedroom. Was it just embarrassment? About her dreams? He did not know. Especially not after their talk when she had woken up in horror. For a second he had thought she wanted to kiss him. As much as they touched each other sometimes there had never been such a moment. Not an honest one. Just a drunk snogging experience which he remembered to be quite pleasing but before it had come to anything serious, they had, in fact, passed out. Since then there had been a silent agreement of being just friends. The fact that they had rarely been single at the same time for a longer period of time had made this relatively easy. This time though…this time the alcohol had long left their blood. Instead of going for it, like the careless dude he sometimes pretended to be, he had stopped the entire situation. Now he wondered if he had really wanted to go through with it. And if he still wanted to. The fact that she lay half across him in a bed, just partly covered with a blanket, didn’t help having sensible thoughts about making out with her. So he looked away from her and started discovering her bedroom. It was the first time he properly saw it. Yesterday he had just jumped at her bed, waiting to sleep. Now though all the tiny little details came clear in the soft morning sun. It was like a crazy, crazy museum. Partly it was a replica of her old room at her mom’s house: Chaotic, full of clutter and seemingly useless objects. On the other hand it was slightly more organized. He figured that resulted from her making this place all at once, whereas her childhood bedroom had grown and grown over the years. Still there was a similar charm to it, but it seemed a little more mature and in control. He liked to think it reflected the development of her personality. 

“Admiring my room?” She abruptly sat up next to him and grinned.   
“Well, it’s kind of hard not to. How long did this take you?”  
“Oh, in fact I just packed everything and unpacked it again and put it where I felt it fit. You like it?”  
“Uhm, yeah, I do, it’s …you”  
“Oh, I gotta show you some stuff” She jumped out of the bed and started collecting a ton of random objects from across the room. Her eyes were glowing as she explained every object to him and he smiled to himself. She was back to normal. Five minutes later he was wearing a huge purple hat and she was wearing an eye patch and a feather boa. Before he had any choice, she started taking pictures with her iPhone.   
“These are perfect. I should…upload them on instagram or something.” She mused, laying in his lap and playing with her feather boa.   
“Don’t you think people will find it a little odd we are dressing up in your bed?”  
“Nah, Isa and I do that all the time…”  
“Oookay…” He said, putting away all his previous ideas about her trying to kiss him. This was like Isa and her playing dress-up and nothing more. He felt sad without wanting it. This was silly. The most Flo and him could ever be would be friends with benefits. And even that would never happen because of a certain silent agreement.   
“Foooolks, it’s breakfast time! I can’t believe I’m cooking when Flo’s the one who owns this plaaaace! So move your freaking arseees!” Isa’s voice echoed through the entire house and Flo and Rob automatically jumped up.   
“I guess we should…er…follow her orders or we might be in trouble.”  
“Yes, I don’t wanna be beaten up by a hobbit!”  
“Ha, if you knew what she can do with her hands?”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Fighting skills, Rob, fighting skills, pull your mind out of the gutter!”  
“Not before I have a chance to inform you about what I can do with MY hands!”   
She gasped. There it was again, this weird look she gave him, as if he had done something wrong. He wanted to ask her what was up, but before he had a chance to, she left the room. Just at the end of the hallway she turned around though and there was something else in her eyes, thankfulness and trust. She smiled at him, as if to tell him “it’s okay, I will tell you later, I’m just not ready. You were great”. He wished she was less confusing, a person who’d just walk up to you and explain all her feelings in detail. But that never happened with Flo, so he was left guessing.


	7. Everything will be alright?

The four of them were slouching on the chairs surrounding Flo’s dinner table, each of them filling their stomachs with various sorts of breakfast. Flo kept refilling her cup of coffee partly to get herself into a wakening state, but she also figured that she couldn’t absorb enough caffeine during her break, hoping it would store itself somewhere in her body for the next tour; whenever that would be. Thinking about it she started to feel all warm and fuzzy, even though she had sworn herself not to enter more than ten stages this year. Looking at the three people around her she knew though that part of her would always long for being on the road, for living in an exclusive weird world with her friends. She looked at Isa, Rob and Chris and felt so happy and so fond of them. Actually not many people would find the three of them admirable in this state, especially the boys looked like monkeys stuffing food into their mouths, but she loved it. Isa, while pretending to eat like a lady, hung onto her chair like a rapper, keeping her image between princess and coolest chick on earth. What would she do without them?

Suddenly there was a pink candy snake moving around the table. Chris made it crawl over a couple of plates and glasses, until he dropped it on Rob’s lap. He kept laughing in a teasing manner and Rob took the candy snake and bit its head off in a playful violent way. Flo found herself unwillingly intrigued by his cheeky looking eyes.   
“That’s what I’d do with that thing too if it crossed me!” he proclaimed.   
“Hah, I wanna see that. Should’ve seen your face when he said it was dangerous. You looked like a scared kid!” Chris faked a screaming face and let out a girly tone.   
“Pah, I did not! You were the one turning all pale, almost peeing into your pants. I’ll have to tell Mairead next time I see her, wonder if she’ll still be so attracted to you.”  
“Couldn’t know how you saw me turning pale, you were too focused on the little monster.”  
“I am afraid of no snakes, Hayden” Rob demonstratively put the rest of the candy snake into his mouth and smashed it with his teeth. He ended up licking every single finger of his left hand deliciously and Flo tried to keep her mouth closed. Why did she not constantly stare at his huge, yet well formed hands for the past years? And him licking anything…Uh God, she needed a freakin shower! But instead she simply put her hand into her glass of water, which promptly swept over. What the fuck was she doing?  
“What are you doing?” Isa stared at her hand with amusement.   
“Oh…oh…washing my hands, yeah!” She demonstratively put her other hand into the glass as well, spilling some more water. Her mouth was formed to a stupid grin that was supposed to look innocent but she rather seemed like a person who had just stolen a car and was trying to hide it underneath a towel.   
Chris raised an eyebrow and shook his head half smiling and opened his mouth in Rob’s direction to continue teasing him but Rob spoke faster than him.  
“Oh to finally know what’s going on inside your head, Flo…” His voice sounded dreamy, whether faked or real Flo could not tell. He laughed sympathetically though while checking out her hands in the glass from various sides.  
“Believe you me, even if you do know, it doesn’t make any more sense.” Isa winked at her best friend and saw Flo turning various shades of red. “But it’s fun!” She quickly added, realizing Flo was embarrassed. Her best friend continued to stare at Rob though, following his every glare with her eyes. In a sudden movement she took her hands out of the glass and Isa automatically handed her a napkin, which she took without looking and dried her hands.   
“Er, Rob, now that my hands are…er…clean, care to share what kind of dangerous animal you are talking about?” Flo figured that saving herself by distracting from her weird behavior was the best option. She had also considered just staring at him silently for a couple more minutes but then realized it would only make matters worse.   
“Oh…it was nothing. And I definitively wasn’t scared…like…at all.” Chris snorted disapprovingly into his direction but he ignored him. “I believe I told you about this kid in my building who keeps boosting about his exotic pets?”  
“Oh yeah and we wanted to check them out, didn’t we?” Isa said, nudging Flo slightly with her elbow.   
“Yeah, yeah we did… and we wanted to steal some of them after we drank this blue stuff at yours last time, right?” Flo continued chatting cheerfully and was damn glad that this conversation turned entirely away from her.   
“You did. He was more interested in trying to talk you out of it.” Chris commented and clapped his friends shoulder. “Weren’t you, Rob?” Rob rolled his eyes and tried to tell his version of the story at last.   
“Anyway…back to the facts… this 12 year old dude walked over yesterday and handed me this box. And in there was a worm with a tongue, it didn’t even look like a snake, that’s how tiny it was. He kept on telling me “oh, pay attention, it’s poisonous!” and I just kept cracking up. Because seriously, it was the tiniest thing!”  
“Yeah, right. The tinier the deadlier, that’s what you thought…” Chris nudged him and gave Flo and Isa a “believe me, he was freakin out” look, so the two started playing along.   
“You do know that there are two inch scorpions out there that can kill you with one bite? I read this book once…” said Flo with share horror on her face.  
“You do know you should never estimate how dangerous something is by its size?” Isa pointed at herself and clapped her own shoulder. “  
“Okay, okay…maybe I was a tiny bit…” Before Rob could finish the sentence, Chris’ phone rang. When they discovered Mairead’s picture on the screen, they quickly became silent. An “uh-oh” sort of glare formed on Chris’ face.   
“Forgot something” he whispered and took the call.   
“Oh, it’s already eleven? I didn’t check…No,…no,…I swear I didn’t forget, I thought it was just nine! …Nah, we’ve been awake for hours, you know us. …Drunk? Nope, only drank orange juice! …Okay, okay, I’m just leaving, I’ll be there in 15, I swear!” He hung up quickly and looked at his three friends who were staring at him as if he had just been thrown into a cage full of lions.   
“Don’t look at me like that! It’s just…brunch with some friends.”  
“Friends? And we aren’t invited? Should I be offended?” Isa crossed her arms smiling.   
“Believe it or not, Mairead actually has girlfriends from the past that she wants to introduce me to. But you know how it is…”  
“We are better company, right?” Rob petted his friend’s shoulder.  
“Just slightly…But she will give me a speech about how I see all of you on tour all the damn time and so on. So I gotta go…If you can finish all that food without me…”  
“Oh that will be so tough…I think we might have to leave all of it for Isa…” Rob rubbed his belly pretending he had eaten enough for the next couple of years.  
“She’ll need a month to eat it though. But I bet she bought lots of useless shit recently, so she might be short on money.” Flo laughed and thought about all the shit she had bought for a second. Oh, it was such a good thing they were rich…  
“And since we are so very nice…”  
“We’d let her live from our food too!” Both of them nodded in Chris direction like little school children.  
“You guys do realize I’m here, right?” Isa turned towards them, pretending to be outraged.   
Flo slowly looked into her direction and cringed when the small blonde appeared in her field of view. “Oh…! I looked right over your head dear, I’m sorry…” She petted Isa’s head gently, looking at her like a mother who tried to calm down a little girl that had just dropped her ice cream. Isa quickly grabbed an empty bowl of popcorn from last night and put it over Flo’s head. When Flo simply started to laugh loudly without trying to remove the bowl, Isa knocked on it with her fist. “There’s something not quite alright in there.” She said laughing and stuck her tongue out to Rob who sheepishly grinned at them. All four of them started to laugh loudly and forgot for a second that there were other things in the world to do then amusing yourself about a silly looking Florence.   
“Didn’t you want to prepare for that DJ set you’re gonna do tomorrow?” He looked at Rob who rolled his eyes.   
“Well actually I wanted to…” He pulled a face and snuggled into his chair as if it were a king sized bed.   
“Come on, Ackroyd, if I have to sit around with giggling women all day, you should freakin’ work!” They turned their heads towards Flo and Isa in slow motion who were still laughing.   
“W...we…a...are not giggling” Isa said quickly, trying to catch a breath but she just continued laughing because Flo couldn’t stop either. And she looked so damn silly with that bowl over her head, acting as if it was just a normal thing to wear.   
“Okay, okay, I’m gonna leave the two silly girls alone and work. Just for you.” He stood up slowly and Chris did the same.   
“Wise decision, man.”  
They both walked around the table to say goodbye.   
“Aww…I can’t believe the two of you leave us just like that…” Isa regained her ability to speak properly and pouted. “Oh come on, Izzy, we’ll try to make room in our busy schedules for you again soon, promise.” Chris winked at her and hugged her. Meanwhile Rob had reached Flo and leaned forward, slowly lifting the bowl to uncover her face. His eyes looked gentle and warm when they met hers and she smiled. It was a lovely change from the purple inside of the bowl.   
“You’re invited to that DJ set of mine, if you arrive without the bowl.” He said, tipping it with his fingers.  
“Are you sure? I think I look exquisite.” She spoke the last word softly in a French accent and he grinned.   
“Maybe an outfit for the next tour but I prefer to see your eyes.” He nodded exaggeratingly and put his left hand on her shoulder. “See you soon, Flo.”  
“Sure” He lifted the bowl from her head and put it on the table to draw her into a hug. She subconsciously leaned heavily into him, which tightened the hug in just the right manner. Thank God she could stop a sigh from escaping her mouth as he let go and waved goodbye in a dorky yet incredibly cute manner. Chris hugged her too but it was the usual deal, no leaning into him like a drowning person. She could beat her feelings up for their sudden change towards Rob.   
Once the front door had closed Isa and Flo sat still for a second, just smiling at each other calmly.   
“That was fun, we should do that all the time. Just being geeky hermits and all” Isa grabbed a handful of cornflakes and put them in her mouth.   
“Yeah…hm…yeah” Flo still hadn’t quite recovered from the stream of consciousness that had overwhelmed her as soon as Rob had left the place.   
Isa quickly noticed something was off with her friend and placed her hand on Flo’s thigh.   
“You okay?” She asked softly, leaning closer.  
“Well…” Flo was on the way to come up with an excuse, anything, because she felt so confused that she didn’t even want to open up to Isa. Which she decided, was a very bad sign.   
“Is it about whatever you wanted to tell me yesterday?” Damn! Unfortunately Isa’s mind was not constantly dealing with weird thoughts creating havoc inside her head, so of course she remembered. She also quickly discovered Flo’s hesitation. “Come on, you were ready to tell me, so what’s keeping your from doing so? Is it that bad?”  
“No…no…it…I don’t know. I’m confused.”  
“Aren’t you all the time?” Flo hit Isa slightly on her arm and pressed a small laugh out of her mouth.  
“It’s not that kind of confusion. It’s…what do you do when you are suddenly in love with someone…and you haven’t been in love with this person for…ages…and then…bang…it’s back and it’s like…eating you up from the inside and you feel so bad…because…because you shouldn’t be in love with this person. Because it’s stupid and silly and it would never work out…and this person probably doesn’t even like you back…or surely doesn’t like you back in that manner. And you just wanna jump this person, all the damn time and you can’t…and you feel like you’re ruining everything?” All of a sudden the words had come out of her mouth like a wave and she felt like that wave had crushed against a shore very violently and she feared she had broken off a great deal of stones.   
“Wuah…now that was a lot. And actually not what I expected. You’re in love?”  
“I guess.”  
“But isn’t that actually a good thing? You’re acting as if this person were…I dunno…a married serial killer.”  
“What would be worse, the married part or the serial killer part?”  
“Both would be kinda ho- Don’t distract me! Is it just bad because it’s morally bad or because you feel bad?”  
“It’s me, I guess. Or not. I dunno.”  
“And…there’s a chance you might tell me who it is, so I can give you my own opinion? Which will probably be a lot more objective and sensible than yours?”  
“You will…probably fall from the chair.”  
“There’s a soft carpet and I gained a few pounds, I’ll be fine…”  
“Isa…you can’t tell anyone.”  
“As if I normally paraded around, screaming your intimate secrets…”  
“Okay…okay…but don’t…don’t judge me.”  
“Have I ever?”  
“Well, that one time when I wore that ugly dress to that party and this cute guy-“  
“Trying to change the subject again, sweety? Come on, spill it out, aunt Isa won’t laugh, even if it’s the Prime Minister.”  
“Alright…it’s…it’s…Rhb…”  
“Rhb? Don’t know that dude, don’t tell me it’s a fictional character…”  
“Rob, for heaven’s sake. Rob, okay! Robert Ackroyd, got it?”  
“Oh” was the only sound that followed and she suddenly took her hand into hers, stood up and walked her to the couch. Flo assumed her best friend considered the more comfortable couch a better place to continue this conversation, knowing it would probably last a while. Flo silently agreed. When the soft cushion came in contact with her body after sitting down, she felt a lot more comfortable. “I should’ve figured…” Isa said and sighed.   
“Was it obvious?” A slight fear crawled through Flo. She hoped she hadn’t come off like a silly teenager with a crush, even though she felt like one.   
Isa shook her head. “Hell no, you’re always like this when he’s near. It’s just…I kind of put it aside, thinking it was over.”  
“That’s what I thought.” Flo sighed, wished herself back to that party two weeks ago, wished she could tell her past self that it was a stupid, stupid idea to talk to this annoying girl.   
Suddenly Isa started laughing and Flo was about to get mad, when her friend swallowed her next laugh. “Sorry…I am just relieved. I thought it might be someone really, really bad.”  
“So it’s not bad? And that it doesn’t make everything a mess?” Flo tried to discover hints for Isa’s answer before she opened her mouth. Suddenly she realized why she hadn’t opened up to her earlier, her opinion was essential. If Isa said “Flo, you’re insane, kick these idiotic feelings out of your head!” she would probably try. Her worries were unfounded though.  
“Well, maybe it makes stuff a little messy. But it’s…it’s not like you haven’t been in love with him before.” That was Isa, stating the facts Flo had buried underneath thousands of others thoughts and wonders.  
“That…that was ages ago, when I was basically a child.” She could hear her voice tremble, she felt so terribly caught, in front of Isa of all people, everything should be okay in front of Isa. “And that’s what it was, a childish crush that you get when you meet a handsome, nice guy who’s older than you.” She desperately tried to explain herself, to justify herself. “But now…I’ve known him for so long and it feels…different. It scares me. I don’t want it to be so.”   
“Well, I’m afraid you can’t change that. When did it start?”  
“Two weeks ago. That party. Remember when I dragged you out to the terrace, pretending I was freaking out because of the heat?” She had to laugh thinking back, if only Isa had known back then, maybe her endless trains of thoughts hadn’t tormented her that much.   
“Oh, yeah…when that annoying girl talked to you, right?”   
“She started it. She nagged me about him. And I…I remembered something.”  
“Oh let me guess, the drunk magic kiss.” They both giggled, thinking of the name they had given to it after Flo had rambled about its epicness the entire night, half drunk and Isa couldn’t sleep.   
“And then all of a sudden…everything was different. Like a switch had been flicked. And I tried to switch it back off…believe me, I tried so hard but it’s not working.” Her voice was desperate and she realized how much this bothered her. Why couldn’t her feelings just be simple and easy to handle?  
“You just gotta accept it. You can’t switch love off. If you suddenly tried to hate me, it wouldn’t work either.” Isa’s voice was calm, matter-of-factly.   
“Oh…I’m not so sure about that…” Flo winked at her and smiled. She quickly got paid back by being poked quite hardly into her belly.   
“Don’t scare me!” Isa laughing but instead of joining her Flo leaned against her for comfort. They both stayed silent for a moment. Then Flo collected her thoughts again.   
“So…now what?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer.   
“I guess you should just…go with the flow, so to speak. Try to discover your feelings, be around him, observe your reactions and his.”  
“His?” Flo raised an eyebrow skeptically.   
“Oh come on, Florence! You do know that he stares at your bum more often than he should, right?”  
“What makes you think that all of a sudden?” She quickly moved away from Isa and looked at her as if she had just gone mad.   
“Not all of a sudden. It’s a general observation. He finds you hot. It’s not just pretending and fake flirting. He thinks you’re a babe, trust me.”  
“So…so I should just go with it? But what if something happens and…we fight and he leaves the band and-“ Her usual collection of worst case scenarios said hello and wanted to torture her a bit.   
“That! That is your problem.” Isa turned towards Flo and placed both her hands on her shoulders, gripping them tightly. She looked into her eyes with a serious facial expression Flo wasn’t used to and she drew in a sharp breath. When she spoke, Isa’s voice sounded almost commanding. “Stop it! Stop thinking about every goddamn scenario that could take place! This isn’t about the bad things that could happen, it’s about the good stuff! You should just go to that DJ set of his that he invited you to. Don’t give me that look, I know you intended to fake some disastrous illness to skip it.”   
“So you’re just gonna drag me there?”  
“Me, nah…” Isa suddenly became silent and looked at the wall. Something she usually never did, that was Flo’s way of avoiding people. Flo suddenly felt her stomach clenching. Her plan B, in case she did manage to drag herself out of her house to go clubbing, was to dance with Isa all night, trying to be as far away from Rob as possible. And now her plan B didn’t want to go?  
“There’s something I wanted to tell you yesterday but you were so worked up that I figured it would be better not to. No, no, don’t panic, it’s not that bad! But I will be away for a bit. My visum arrived earlier than I thought and I’ll…fly to LA tomorrow. Someone has to arrange things so that we can start recording the next album. And I figured…don’t be mad.”  
Flo swallowed hard, slowly turning away from her friend to collect herself. She felt like throwing a fit and crying but then she took a deep breath. This had been planned a long time ago, it wasn’t anything huge. Back then no one had known that she would develop a freak crush on Rob and that she’d feel like attaching herself to Isa’s hips for the next couple of days. She needed to calm down, to stop being such a cry-baby.   
“No, it’s…it’s okay. You gotta do this. It’s fine.” She said a bit louder than she intended to, trying to convince herself that she actually spoke about her real feelings, even though she knew she wasn’t. Isa sighed and hugged Flo from behind, resting her head on the shoulder of her much bigger friend.   
“Don’t worry, you’ll be okay. Everything will be okay. Don’t think, just act, okay?”  
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try.”  
“And if anything is wrong, anything at all, you can call me. Even in the middle of the night and fuck…even if I have group sex over there…I’ll stop right away and talk to you, right?”  
Flo burst out laughing, turned around and threw her arms around Isa almost violently.   
“You’re so amazing, I don’t deserve you.”  
“Don’t start with that crap again, Welch, you deserve every amazing and slightly mental person you have in your life.”  
“Thanks” She mumbled and sighed. Flo’s violent hug had thrown them both at her coach. Flo’s head was resting on Isa’s belly and the blonde’s tiny hand stroked her best friend’s hair.   
“Any time, dear. But I gotta go and pack stuff, if that’s okay?” Isa made Flo aware she wanted to stand up and so they both got up from the couch.   
“We’ll handle this…Robot and Machine style, I promise.” Isa stuck her hand out to give Flo a high five and she followed her invitation. Flo wanted to beat herself up for not telling Isa earlier. She should’ve known that she’d make her feel better. She always did, no matter what was wrong. Everything would be okay. Everything.


	8. An ode to a snake

There were a couple of random activities she spend the majority of her life doing. One was singing tunes she spontaneously made up, another one was running around various towns all over the world buying magical little or sometimes bigger things, she also loved to twirl around, occasionally still climbing objects….and then there was, of course, looking for things she had lost. 

At the moment she was occupied with three of these activities. First she sang a happy tune and made up lyrics to it that for some reason centered around an oak tree. Secondly she was dancing, occasionally twirling through her entire house. And thirdly but actually most importantly she was looking for her mobile.   
Originally her intention had been to call Sophie, so that they could hang around, whine a little about their actually pretty good lives and then meet up with some of her old friends. She needed to get out, she figured, and actually with people who were not awfully strongly connected to Rob.   
She spent about twenty minutes looking for her stupid mobile and was close to believing that it had been teleported into a different universe. Just when she considered suing whoever told her not to get a goddamn landline, so that she could go all schizophrenic and call herself – it started ringing. And not just once but several times. She quickly left the kitchen - half falling over a pile of books which she had sworn herself never to keep on the floor again – but damn, there it was…and ran into her bedroom. Of course, shortly before she had reached the destination of her runaway mobile, it stopped ringing. She confusedly looked around her room, began to move her pillows around, when it started ringing again. It had to be somewhere inside her bed. She tried her best to find it but it actually took her three missed calls and fifteen minutes to discover the evil little object between the headboard of her bed and the mattress. She fumbled it out hastily when another call began but she only managed to see her still glowing screen. It read five missed calls, all from Rob. She swallowed hard. Why did he call her that often? Was something wrong? A couple of disastrous scenarios began creeping into her mind, she saw him lying in a roadside ditch, with his limbs looking like spaghetti… when the doorbell rang. Confused she walked towards the front door and looked through the spyhole. It was him! And he looked furious! His hair was all over the place, his eyes seemed almost wild. On the one hand she was relieved he was alright – thinking about it: how could he possibly have called her if all his limbs had been broken?? –, on the other hand she was almost too shy to open the door, fearing she was responsible for his anger. When he rang the doorbell again and then actually started knocking, she quickly opened the door though, taking a deep breath. 

“Rob?” she exclaimed, obviously shocked.   
“Thank God you’re here! I tried to call you…! You won’t believe what happened!” He sounded deeply enraged. He wasn’t in this mood very often, he was a calm person usually, so she automatically worried. Her eyes opened widely but before she asked what was wrong, she instinctively stepped aside and let him into the house. He entered the hallway and when she closed the door there was an unspoken connection, a feeling of support and understanding, no matter what the issue was. It was a feeling she had had around Rob before, yet she had never paid attention to it before this moment. Just before the atmosphere started turning into tension, he grinned, not in a happy way but as if he was amused about an absurd fact.  
“This is so silly. But I gotta ask you…can I stay here?” His eyes suddenly started to look an awful lot like those of a puppy. The change from the stressed out man to the boyish looking guy who begged her to stay at her place made something inside her flutter. She was about to come up with a perfect offer to spend the rest of this week or month or year in her house but instead she just stammered:   
“Can you…what? But why?” She wanted to slap herself for even asking. Heck, he was here! And under different circumstances, which meant two weeks ago, she would’ve just said “why not?” but now she actually considered whether it was a good idea. Damn, she wasn’t supposed to reflect stuff, she was just supposed to do it!  
“Er…you are welcome of course! Totally! For how long you want! And you can have my bed and my food and my clothes…” She mentally slapped herself again. She had hoped that having a crush would not cause her to babble ridiculous things anymore. She was 26 and not 14 after all. And it was Rob, for fuck’s sake, Rob…that was the worst part.   
“Oh, thanks…thanks…I’ll have second thoughts about the clothes though.” He winked and looked down on his giant trim body which was like so often covered in black clothes.   
“Yeah…yeah, of course, they might be…too small…” Her mouth kept spilling out jibberish. She sighed and decided to go back on topic. “So…what did you say happened again?”   
He moved forward and put both his hands on her shoulders, looked at her bemused. God, what was he doing to her? He could as well just lean forward and snog her senseless. Or she could snog him. But of course she didn’t because if she head, she would’ve mentally knocked herself out.   
“I can’t get into my apartment because my building got evacuated and sealed!” Flo’s jaw dropped and for a second she considered jumping away from him, fearing he had some crazy exotic disease.  
“And you know why? Because the goddamn snake broke out of its terrarium!” A huge amount of wrinkles formed on his head and he raised an eyebrow in disbelief.   
“You…you mean the tiny one? That little thing?” Her feelings for him gave her a short break when her inner cinema showed a movie about the tiny snake hunting a screaming Rob. She tried to keep herself from laughing, so she let out a couple of weird coughs.   
“Yes, and apparently it crawled into the wall and now they kicked all of us out until they’ve found it. Turns out the fucking thing is worth a fortune and the kid’s dad wants it back. At first I thought they were kidding but no…We all had to leave the house immediately. They didn’t even let us pick any of our stuff because…you know, the snake could already hide in our closets. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing ever?”  
“It’s…pretty spectacular, I must say.” A few more weird coughs escaped her mouth and she made weird grimaces, trying not to giggle.   
“It’s okay, Flo. Feel free to pee yourself laughing. But remember…I didn’t consider it necessary to leave the place because I thought I could fight the snake. With my bare hands.”  
“Yeah, yeah, sure…I’ll remember that…” And she finally led out a loud, throaty laugh. Their faces stayed wonderfully close while they both laughed in unison. She sighed when he moved his hands away from her shoulders and became serious again.   
“I hope I don’t stand in the way of anything if I stay here.” He asked unusually silent. She wanted to scream “Fuck no, move in here if you feel like it! And don’t ever get your clothes back because you don’t fucking need any!” but instead she simply said:   
“Of course not, don’t be silly. I’m just sitting around here, not doing much of anything. Maybe we’ll do something productive together, like writing songs… or so.” Flo gestured awkwardly, still not sure whether this was the most awful or the best thing that could’ve happened. She didn’t even try to wonder why he didn’t ask someone else. Why should he? She had a new, empty house all for herself and they were the best of friends.   
“Yeah, why not? But only if Isa won’t be jealous…”  
“Oh, she’ll be okay. She’s betraying me anyway. She’s in a plane to the States right now…”  
“How can she? This evil, evil person! And you call her your best friend?”  
“I know, right? She’s unbelievable! At least you’re hanging out with me…because your apartment got evacuated and you don’t have anywhere else to stay!” The last part came out in lightening speed and she realized it sounded pretty ridiculous.   
“Now that sounds way more negative than it is…” All of a sudden he grabbed her and lifted her from the floor. She let out a girly scream followed by loud laughter, as she tried to free herself but it was impossible, so she just relaxed. His hands rested in the hollows of her knees and on her back and he carried her into the living room. For a second he just stood there, in the middle of the room and grinned at her.   
“You know, I could get used to that. Isa has really missed out on her gym sessions lately…” she said, looking deeply into his brownish green eyes. She felt like stroking his cheeks and his jaw, kissing his forehead and the back of his nose and then his lips. Fucking hell, she needed to get down.


	9. Falling's not the problem

It was a funny thing, almost living with Rob. Sure, they had been on tour together for what felt like 20 years but that had never been anywhere close to domestic. The past 24 hours seemed like a surreal vision to her. They had cooked together, something which they had never properly done besides warming up fast food in a tour bus. She usually loved to pretend she was an amazing cook, just slightly chaotic. In front of him though she admitted she had no clue what the fuck she was doing and he didn’t either and so they simply threw a ton of ingredients into a pan and hoped it would turn out alright. Funnily enough it ended up being one of the most delicious things she had ever eaten, even though it looked like it had come out of someone’s stomach backwards. Usually her food would look pretty decent and then taste like shit because she had the attention span of a goldfish and had confused all the spices while using them as props during an expressive dance. She liked the idea that it was different with Rob. She also enjoyed the outlook of never pretending to be a housewife with him in the future. This thought was quickly crossed out of her mind by her consciousness since he would leave her place in a couple of days anyway and there wouldn’t be a reason for her to be a housewife around him ever again.

For the rest of the evening they ended up listening to countless records and came up with new ideas for his DJ set. She couldn’t keep herself from dancing and twirling around and after watching her for a while, he joined in. Both of them were sucked into an endless swirl of rhythms and sounds, like it was just them, isolated from the world, and their only company were countless melodies and the secret knowledge of experiencing a musical rush together. They had always been connected on a deep level when it came to music. Not necessarily in what they listened to in their daily lives but rather a shared understanding of something they felt was their music, which was weird since they had barely written songs together. After an epic discussion about their favorite artists and the meaning of music in general - Flo saved it as one of the most intellectual conversations she ever had – they went to bed at about 3 am, in separate rooms. Without asking he had installed himself in her guest room and she didn’t dare to protest. She left the door that connected her room to the guestroom open though, like always. Usually it was for the comfort of being close to someone when she was asleep but this time it was the need of being closer to him, screwing the logic that several feet separated them, at least it wasn’t a wall. Before she went to bed she sent a text to Isa, saying that she was a fucked up person in an emotional whirlwind, carried only by music. Then she sent a second text stating that Rob was staying at her place for an unforeseen time due to a snake that she wanted to secretly propose to. Isa wrote back that she should ditch the philosophical ramblings, thank whatever “higher power” brought her into this situation….and either screw him soon or shut the fuck up about the issue and screw someone else. Flo nodded to herself and promised Isa that she would try getting something out of her system tomorrow. But she would not dare promise her with who or how. 

*

16 hours later she was sitting backstage in an insanely full club. Instead of mixing with the crowd like usually she had taken the back door with him and was now hanging out with the other guest DJs and the staff. It had been quite a nightmare to get his things ready for the set since he wasn’t able to get any of his equipment from his apartment. Thankfully a couple of friends had helped him out. They had also grabbed a couple of records from her place and brought them to the club together with some clothes for him to wear. Now she was looking around and tried not to meet too many eyes because people stared at her like a zoo animal. It was clear no one had expected her to turn up. As usually she had completely forgotten she was famous. She couldn’t wait for his set to start, so that she could just dance and feel like she was a child alone in her bedroom. Then his tall lean figure appeared in front of her. His concerned face made it clear that he knew she wasn’t feeling insanely comfortable. 

“You okay? Some more folks will turn up in a bit and we can have a little backstage party. My set will start in an hour.” He smiled and sat down on the chair next to her. Hallow music started playing in the background.   
“Backstage? Come on, I will go outside with you” Just the idea of hopping around in the background while he was outside, having all the fun, suddenly killed her. The problem wasn’t just the fact that it would be more epic outside, but the attention he’d receive from a bandwagon of famewhores. And she had never cared about these stupid chicks before besides finding them annoying. What an irony that one of them started this mess.   
“Are you sure? There are lots of young people there…” He looked worried, something she did not know from him. He had been there when she had thrown herself into the arms of dozens of screaming, drunk audiences after all.   
“Hah, did you forget Dublin?” She stated the most recent one of these occasions, most importantly the after party. Suddenly she remembered how she had basically clung to him the entire evening, smiling her butt off. Had everything really been that obvious and she had been the only one that hadn’t noticed her own feelings?  
“Well no, didn’t forget Dublin of course…that was pretty epic. But sometimes I wonder that if you keep jumping into the masses some people will freak out.” She raised her eyebrows. Since when did that bother him? He turned his face towards her and their eyes met in an intense manner. He wasn’t kidding. And she wasn’t ready to give in.   
“They are freaking out already.” She laughed and pointed at two waitresses who giggled and stared into her direction constantly. It wasn’t like she didn’t notice changes in her life or that she didn’t have to accept a certain amount but she had always been able to do what she wanted in the end, without making a fuss. The stubborn part of her wanted to be annoyed but the part of her that suddenly felt a silly, overwhelming love for him enjoyed the idea of him protecting her immensely.   
“Alright. You’ll join me then. But you don’t wanna get announced or anything?”  
“Are you crazy? Nah, I’ll just randomly join you and look at their faces. It’ll be fun!” She nodded and grinned, her voice became pretty high and she started shifting on her chair, ready to dance. Rob seemed to be amused by her childlike joy but he made a serious face one last time.   
“Okay…but it was actually the heads of the club who asked because of security issues when they saw I brought you along…” She knew something had been up. Normally he’d just let her do whatever silly thing came to her mind…besides climbing things higher than seven feet.   
“Oh…well, er…you can tell them I’ve done stuff like this before and that nothing ever happened. Come on, we went to like a ton of concerts and no one ever crushed me, right?” She hoped he’d agree with her. She wanted to just fucking freak out with him to music tonight and she didn’t want him to hold her back…or himself.   
“No…no, no one did. But the last time I remember you sat on my shoulders.” Her inner video camera quickly replayed the last time she sat on his shoulders. Suddenly she felt her thighs burning, remembering how his big, yet elegant, soft hands had touched them. He had touched her naked skin and she had just let it happen because it was normal. Now their knees were touching, which they always seemed to do. Just another one of these little things they often did to be close to each other that she had never paid attention to.   
“Well, if things go all wrong I can just sit on your shoulders again?” she said eagerly, having the sudden need to rip her pants off and make him touch her thighs, way up to…  
“Ackroyd, man! Haven’t seen you in…oh…and the mighty Florence descended from planet fame too…” They both turned around quickly to see an old friend of Rob’s who had been around from time to time way at the beginning of their adventure. Flo had rarely talked to him and felt uncomfortable for being approached in such a flamboyant manner. When Rob stood up to hug the guy her eyes got stuck to his ass like metal to a magnet. She didn’t really feel very mighty opposite his body at the moment. 

*

The event that should finally trigger a change in their relationship was rather shitty. Retrospectively she was thankful for it though, because she would’ve thought herself capable of dancing circles around him for the rest of her life, hoping the feelings would pass. What led to the event was dancing, a ton of it in fact. Rob had started his DJ set, big announcement, big mention of the band, screaming people. His suave shape appeared, illuminated by disco lights. To her he looked like a god. Two minutes after the set had begun, he turned around and winked at her. She was still standing half backstage, hiding behind a curtain. Suddenly she just jumped on stage, smiling broadly and began moving to the beat wildly. At first no one noticed who she was and she enjoyed being the random groupie who jumped on stage during Robert Ackroyd’s set. She moved closer towards him and he kept looking at her as if trying to hypnotize her. When she moved closer and closer their eyes turned dark and almost wild, like they began a battle. It wasn’t a new thing to do for them, but suddenly she fully appreciated the sexual energy surrounding them. She started dancing around him, randomly touching him in unsuspicious and more suspicious places. He played along, as he always did. She tried giving him alluring looks and she feared that now that she intended to do it she probably looked like a complete fool. He didn’t seem to think so though, since his arm suddenly wrapped itself around her waist and pulled her towards him. Her side hit his almost violently. Her head fell into her back automatically and she looked at him, smiling almost as if she were on drugs.   
“You can pull off a fucking show anywhere, can’t you?” He said, almost as if he wanted to challenge her.   
“You call that…a show?” She answered in the same, challenging tone of voice and wrangled herself out of his grip. She took two long steps behind his back, hearing her heels on the floor beyond the music. She positioned herself directly behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist. His belly felt so firm against her palms that she had a hard time not to slide her hands underneath his shirt. She stood on her tiptoes and her mouth reached his neck. “I will demonstrate what a real show is” she whispered and let out more breath then she needed, letting the air released from her lungs caress the skin of his shoulders.  
From that moment on she pulled one of her craziest dances possible, jumped across the stage like a maniac, all the while giving him hot looks. It seemed like he was making the music faster and louder just for her and her movements seemed to melt together with it like a modern artwork. Just when she started moving towards him again, the spotlights fixated on her for the first time. She turned her head instinctively, her red hair flipping around. When her pale face appeared in front of the audience, illuminated by the artificial light, people started screaming excitedly.   
“It’s Florence! Oh my God!”  
A mixture between screaming and laughing filled the room. Flo started grinning because most of these people’s faces were glowing like they just attended a Christmas dinner. She continued jumping around and began animating the audience. To hers and Rob’s amusement it only took her a minute to get almost all of them on her side. She seemed like a wicked dance instructor. Rob stared at her in awe and she enjoyed his attention massively. Just when she was about to sing along to the tunes, a couple of excited people tried to climb onto the stage. Normally she wasn’t one to spoil the fun when people tried to get close to her but this was too much. They started crashing a group of young women in the front row, so she quickly stopped the entire scenario. She jumped backwards and grabbed Rob’s microphone. He reacted quickly and turned down the music.   
“Hey, hey, that’s enough! Get down, now!” They didn’t seem to listen, so she tried to use her most serious voice, loudly. “Get down, this is dangerous. You are crashing people. We will leave directly if you don’t stop!” She moved towards the intruders, tried to look as tall as possible and they stopped their attempts to enter the stage. That’s when Flo noticed that two security guards had almost reached the stage to help her out but it seemed she had handled the situation on her own. A couple of “boo” sounds echoed through the hall and the last person, a man in his 20s, climbed back into the audience. Rob gave her a thumbs up. “Okay, if we all behave for the rest of the night, we can continue, right?” Florence was about to sigh of relief when a middle aged man, bulky and tall, made his way towards her. She went to the edge of the stage, giving him a puzzled look. His smell reached her a couple of feet before him, it was heavily alcoholic.   
“Who the fuck are you?” He growled.  
“Excuse me?” She wasn’t quite sure what his intention was, so she tried to leave some space between them.   
“You come here and do some shit and now you interrupt the set, fuck off”  
“I’m sorry this happened, I’m his friend and we are…”  
“I don’t care who the fuck you are. You come here, show off some shitty dance and behave like a fucking priest, you posh bitch.”   
She didn’t quite know what to do. It was obvious he only wanted to provoke her, so she figured it was best to just let it go.   
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m not in for such a conversation.” She said, thinking she sounded reasonable, but not to him apparently. When she turned around to face Rob, she heard a hissed “fuck you, snotty cunt” and then felt herself fall to the ground. She tried to protect herself from the fall but it was too unexpected and her head hit one of the speakers. She heard a bang sound and pain pierced through her head. For a second she couldn’t think, her mind felt like thick fog was covering it. At first she couldn’t even locate the pain, her entire skull seemed to burst. She still had enough consciousness to beat herself up for having done any of this. Suddenly she felt an air drought passing her body, somebody screamed. It took her dizzy brain long to connect the angry voice to Rob. What was he doing? She wanted to stand up but as soon as her arms tried to lift her upper body, the world started turning. Fuck. Just when she tried looking around, Rob entered her field of view. He looked exhausted and worried beyond belief. He kneeled down next to her and touched her head gently. Another wave of pain swept through it.   
“Do…don’t. It hurts.” She said and her own voice sounded like she was behind a wall. He sighed with relief when she started talking. His hands quickly moved from the top of her head to her cheeks. He stroked her face gently a couple of times.   
“Fucking hell, Flo…” His forehead touched hers and he let out a couple of deep breaths. She would’ve enjoyed the feeling of being so close to him had it not been for the pain that was still hammering inside her head.   
“No, no, I’ll handle this” He suddenly said, moving away from her slightly. She had no idea who he was talking to. “Wrap your arm around my neck. I’ll carry you outside, you don’t look like you can walk.”  
“But, but your set…”  
“You are more important than that stupid set.” Before she could protest any further, he lifted her gently and carried her off the stage. Her vision was still somewhat blurred, so she closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. It felt great to be in his arms. She didn’t feel strong enough to reflect what had just happened, so she tried to concentrate on how save she felt.   
He slowly sat her down on a chair backstage and leaned down to look into her eyes.  
“Are you alright? Were you unconscious?” He asked and sounded like a doctor.   
“No, no, I don’t think…”  
“Do you feel dizzy?”   
“No” This was true at the moment, she had felt like a sailor during a massive storm some minutes ago but now the world was surprisingly calm.   
“Do you feel sick?”  
“Rob, I’m okay, my head just hurts…” She was surprised by how calm she was. Normally she would go through a couple of horrible injuries she could have but right now she just wanted him to stop worrying.   
“I will have a medic check you out anyway.” He straightened himself and was about to walk away, looking for someone to examine her, when he turned around quickly and pointed at her, his eyebrows narrowed. “Stay where you are!” He commanded, half joking, half serious. She nodded like a well behaved schoolgirl, which was something quite unknown to her remembering her school days. At the moment she would’ve done anything to keep him calm though, so she ignored the dizziness that befell her when she nodded a bit too fast. Stupid head. Most importantly stupid guy. She hoped someone had taken care of him and she wanted that someone to be Rob. Images of him beating the guy up made her smile but then she hoped he had not done that, because she seriously didn’t want to deal with that violent looking man ever again.   
When the medic arrived, he gave her the usual talk about head injuries. She should rest and pay attention to how she felt. If her condition worsened, she should go to a hospital immediately. He let her go by saying that he suspected she had a slight concussion. Meanwhile she could hear Rob having a heated conversation with who she assumed to be the club’s manager. Five minutes later he returned to her looking very displeased. He didn’t comment the argument he had just had and simply guided her out of the club, his hand firmly on her shoulder.


	10. When I'm falling I'm at peace

“I’m seriously such a fucking tool” Flo said when Rob handed her a bag full of ice to cool her head. She was feeling alright but there was still a twinge where her head had made the speakers’ acquaintance. Rob sat down next to her on the sofa and started to gently rub her back.  
“You couldn’t have known that idiot would be there. It wasn’t your fault.”  
“Yes, sure, but what about the rest? About the people climbing onto the stage? Am I really that much of an attention seeker that I have to put on a show unannounced and then create chaos? The management was right. I shouldn’t have done that.”  
“Well, that’s probably true, but you know what? In the end this was about fun and about expressing yourself, about doing something you love. You didn’t want to go out there just to have an audience, right?”  
“No, no, not really” It had only been because of him but she didn’t want to say that to his face. “But sometimes I wonder if I’m not overdoing it. Like maybe I should throw everything silly behind, so that I stop getting others into trouble. Like you.”  
“Trouble? Oh come on, Flo, as soon as that guy saw me, he ran away like a puppy.”  
“But there aren’t always tall, fit men to help me out, you know…”  
“So far you’ve handled yourself pretty well on your own.”  
“Yeah…yeah…kind of…” Her glare traveled away from him around the living room. It was her place and she felt really comfortable here, yet she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she didn’t quite know where she would end up. There was an uncontrollable spin in her life, ever since the entire fame-thing had begun. It didn’t seem to slow down, only became faster. She had stopped it herself at the end of last year, fearing that not only the public would get sick of her but that she would get sick of the entire adventure, if she didn’t live a normal life for a bit. Now though nothing felt normal. She had her own house and stayed in London for longer periods of time, no insane travelling around the world, doing only what she felt like doing. But instead of feeling grounded she only felt weirdly alone. As if everybody else’s life was continuing and hers was stuck when she wasn’t on stage.  
“Care to enlighten me what’s inside your little head? Hopefully it has nothing to do with pain?”  
“No, no, that’s okay now. I just…” She suddenly felt like a burden. He had ended his promising DJ set for her in the most awkward kind of way and now she was sitting across from him wondering if she should bare her soul in front of him. She looked back at the conversation they had had two nights ago, at how anxious she had been about even telling him one sentence about her fears. Now they sat as closely together as possible and he was still stroking her back, slowly and carefully. The look on his face was of real interest, he wanted to know how she felt. So why should she not answer him? “Do you remember our conversation about being alone?”  
“Sure, I didn’t drink that much that night.” He winked and she laughed. He could always make her laugh, no matter the situation.  
“It’s a problem I’ve had for a while. Like I feel isolated. Everybody’s life…like the lives of the people I’ve known before making music, keep continuing and changing on a personal level. Heck, some of my friends are married, have jobs where they do useful things on a daily basis whereas I…I don’t even know what the heck I am doing. It’s like I’m the girl that danced in her bedroom and all of a sudden somebody got me onto a stage and pays me for it. It’s a dream, yeah. But then I do something like tonight, that I did tons of times in the past and suddenly it goes all wrong and I wonder: am I on the right track? Is this good? You know what I imagined when I was little, about how my life would be like when I’m 26? I think if my past self saw me she’d be crazily excited but there’s something missing. Something…I don’t know…” She shook her head slightly, some pain still necking her but at this point all she wanted was a hug, a tight hug. She knew she was probably just being overdramatic but that didn’t change she felt like shit. Rob on the other hand sighed, a faint smile on his face. 

*

Rob wasn’t sure why he was so surprised to hear her words. He knew best how a life of touring could affect a person’s private life. To imagine being in Flo’s shoes only made it worse. There had been a silent agreement at the beginning that she would always take center stage when it came to the media, she was Florence after all, but the burden she had to carry was something he often tried to erase from his mind. She had never talked about it anyway, that was…until now. Some part of him knew she was vulnerable, she wasn’t shy of admitting that in situations when she had everything under control. Yet he had rarely ever seen her like that. The memory of her falling and crashing into the speaker, crumbling down like a hurt animal, returned. Just the few steps until he had reached her had seemed like an eternity. Once he had realized that she was conscious he had ignored his need to fall to his knees and shield her from everything around and he had attacked the guy who had pushed her. His fist had connected with the man’s broad jar in seconds, making him stumble backwards. Before his opponent could react, his other fist had smashed the man’s nose with as much violence as he could remember using in his life. The security had jumped at them and separated them. The man had put on a fight, trying to reach him but Rob had just stood still. He knew he had fucked it up but his brain had not been able to show a different reaction…and maybe it had not been his brain after all. As soon as he had persuaded the security to let him go, he had returned to Flo. When he had seen the pain on her face he had almost been disappointed he couldn’t hit the idiot who did this to her another time. Seeing her sitting across from him now, a bag of ice on her head, slightly shaking and bearing her soul to him, awoke a feeling in him that he wasn’t sure had been there before. He desperately wanted to come up with a brilliant philosophical quote that would save her day but he realized he wasn’t as eloquent in describing deep thoughts as she was. 

“I could tell you some useless stories about how living your dreams requires some sacrifices but I’d be an idiot thinking you wouldn’t know that. Look, I think you should just see what’s in front of you and…Oh fuck it, I’m really not so good at this.” He laughed and felt slightly idiotic. This was the kind of conversation she should have with Isa. He was sure her blonde best friend would come up with a perfectly simple answer to resolve her problem. He wasn’t able to. Instead of being disappointed she returned his laugh though.  
“I didn’t actually expect an answer to solve it. I know it probably can’t be.”  
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I know what you mean.”  
“You do? Mr. Ackroyd thinks nothing is happening in his life right now? I kind of thought it would be one of my weird problems no one quite gets.”  
“No, it’s not, actually. You know to how many chicks I’m married to? Or how many regular jobs I got? Forget the last one, never felt like someone made for a day to day office job or something, but otherwise? I’m hanging with some folks here, then with some folks in LA, we go to clubs, we drink, we have fun, and the next day I’m in my apartment and maybe someone passed out on the floor but that’s it. No revolutionary things happening until the next tour.”  
“Maybe we have to make something happen for it to happen.”  
“Would sound smart with a few less “happen” in it.”  
She laughed and jokingly hit his thigh.  
“I’m serious. Maybe we should like…run away and…”  
“Do what?”  
“Save the world?” She laughed at her own silly suggestion but he could actually imagine her doing so. He didn’t quite know how but some part of him always saw her as someone who helped others. She probably didn’t notice, as usually, but she made a lot of people’s lives better. And his life was actually one of them. He didn’t want her to feel alone or like her life wasn’t moving ahead. His own feelings regarding this had never really bothered him that much, he had just tried to push them aside while having fun. The thought of her feeling that way actually tormented him.  
He started to observe her, listened to both of their breathing while none of them spoke. Her eyebrows were raised at her own cluelessness of what she actually wanted. The idea of what he wanted hit him almost violently though. He looked down at her piercing green eyes, her pale soft skin and his glare was forced to stop at her lips. They were slightly parted and so very full and red. Fuck. 

*

She noticed the way he was staring at her, but she didn’t know what to make of it. Had she irritated him with her ramblings about running away to save the world? Suddenly he moved closer to her and her entire body started vibrating. His eyes darkened, something appeared on his face that she didn’t remember seeing there before. The atmosphere wasn’t new to her though, it was the same buzzing tension that had surrounded them when she had almost kissed him on her bedroom floor. 

“I know one thing…I want to make this feeling go away”  
“And how are you going to do that?” She asked, not at all sure what was going to follow.

His hand moved away from her back and he turned towards her entirely, still facing her and it felt like his eyes were entering her soul. She held her breath, overwhelmed by how intensely he looked at her, like he was seeing her for the very first time. He started breathing heavily, shifting slightly as if he didn’t know what to do but then he leaned forward quickly, leaving only centimeters between their faces. An almost cheeky smile formed on his lips and she thought she was about to faint. What was he doing? Before she could debate about the answer to this question, both his hands basically gripped the sides of her head and he pulled her towards him. His lips hit hers so quickly she didn’t even have time to close her eyes, nevertheless to think about what they were doing. The simple sensation of the soft skin of his lips touching hers sent shivers through her entire body. They opened their mouths in unison. When his tongue touched hers she felt what seemed almost like in explosion. First they slowly discovered each other, trying to find a rhythm. He tasted marvelous. While enjoying the slow dance of their tongues she felt his hands leaving her face, running down her arms and her sides. She shivered, this felt so fucking great. She realized how turned on she was, how much she wanted him and her own hands, who had just lain useless in her lap, made their way to his back. When she gripped him and wrapped her arms around him, pushing him as close to her as possible, he answered back by speeding up the movements of his tongue. Soon they were crashing against each other almost desperately, his hands were all over her body, caressing her and she ran her palms up and down his chest and then underneath his shirt. His warm skin sent another electric shock through her. Suddenly he broke the kiss and they stared at each other, both gasping for air. She feared he would stop the entire moment. She looked at him intensely and smiled, to make clear that she was okay with this, that she wanted this. He slowly nodded and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and waist. She let out a shocked gasp when he lifted her slowly and lay her down again on the couch. His huge body was on top of her, his smell making her feel drugged. He sank down on her and started kissing the side of her neck. An uncontrolled moan escaped her, she let her head fall back. Her hands wandered to the end of his shirt and she started pulling it up and running up and down his back and his belly. She could feel his muscles contract and another wave of erection swept through her body. His kisses travelled down her hot skin until he reached her cleavage. Their eyes met and they both made clear they wanted to get rid of the layers of clothes that kept them from connecting more closely. She quickly pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. He started fumbling with the buttons of her shirt nervously when she made him aware she didn’t give a fuck about how the shirt would look like after this. With one quick movement he ripped it open, ignoring the buttons flying across the room. She thanked herself that she had put on one of her best bras, hoping he might get to see it somehow. He looked down at her smiling and leaned down to kiss her again. She wrapped her arms around his back, feeling ever single muscle. Once their kiss broke, his lips moved downwards from her neck to the curves of her breasts that the bra revealed. She moaned again and as his hand travelled down to her trousers and opened them she wondered if she had ever been close to an orgasm before this early in a make out session. Her thighs automatically rocked upwards, when his hand moved inside of her trousers. When his middle finger touched her centre through her pants, she was sure a huge amount of her braincells wouldn’t survive the next couple of minutes. Fuck, Robert Ackroyd was about to touch her fucking vagina! And she was already wet as hell when his fingers stroked her through her damn underwear. Her eyes met his again and there was such a cheeky twinkle in them that she couldn’t help but grin and take the challenge. Her hands moved away from his back to his trousers. The bulge she felt made her take in a deep breath. Oh God, she was giving him a bloody erection and it seemed to be huge. She quickly opened his zippers and gripped his penis through his boxers. It felt good, really, really good, thick and long, but nothing too impressive, nothing that could be too painful. Oh fuck, she wanted him so much. Just when his hand entered her panties, she could hear a noise. She wasn’t sure what it was and when he started rubbing her clit, she didn’t give a damn. She quickly pulled down his trousers and boxers at the same time. When her hand came in contact with his erection, he let out a growl and pulled down her trousers with one hand while still doing his work on her clit with the other. She heard the sound again but fuck it, his middle finger left her clit and entered her. Now it was her time to moan and be out of control. She wanted to take him, now.  
She was about to sit up to get rid of her bra when she heard a knock. And then another one. They both jumped up away from each other, totally in shock. It was the front door! Someone was there!

“Who?” He almost yelled, even though he was whispering, desperately pulling his pants up.  
“I don’t fucking know!” She answered, wondering if she could just beat up the damn person at the door and continue this amazing moment. Then a voice followed the knocking and another voice. Mairead and Chris and they sounded worried. Flo just wanted to jump out of the window.


	11. It's only when I hit the ground

“We…we should hide” Flo tried to whisper but she sounded like a hysterical person, gasping for oxygen.  
“Hide? What? They probably heard what happened and wanna check on us” Rob really did whisper but he was out of breath as well, desperately trying to pull his trousers back on.  
“They heard? But how? We were gone so fast, we…” Her voice become crazily high and she sounded like a squirrel trying to run away from a fox.  
“Believe it or not, but you being attacked by a guy causes a stir…”  
“Oh God, we have to hide! In the back of the house, they won’t hear us and we will just…”  
“Wait til they leave, sick of worry and search us all over the city?”  
“Er…er…”  
“Flo, we can hear you in there, are you alright?” Mairead’s voice interrupted Flo’s desperate try to come up with a sensible idea. She froze in the middle of gesturing and stared at Rob with huge eyes.  
“They heard us….damn…? How did they?”  
“Florence, your whispering is as loud as a plane crash, could you please let us in? This is serious.” Mairead again, she sounded like a teacher, something that rarely happened these days. Flo felt her cheeks burning. She looked down at her bra and realized all her clothes were spread across the room.  
“We have to….dress!” She exclaimed, before she saw that Rob had already put on his shirt again.  
“This is what I am trying to do the entire time” He bluntly commented and handed her trousers and blouse to her. A loud knock seemed to make her ears explode and she tried to basically jump into her trousers, while trying to get closer to the door. “Alright, alright, I am coming…to the door!” She yelled, feeling completely awkward.

Rob tried to make the couch look a little less messy and started picking up the pillows that had fallen to the floor. When Flo had managed to stumble into the hall, knocking over a couple of things in the process, she wanted to put on her blouse. Just after she had managed to put her arms into the sleeves, she held it wide open in shock, all the buttons were gone. She looked around the room in panic. Why oh why did she decide to make her wardrobe upstairs? When another loud knock reached her, she quickly grabbed a coat from her hallstand, put it on and wrapped it around herself. She looked back into the living room. Rob made a grimace. He sat on the couch, a pillow covering his crotch and pretended to look as innocent as possible. She laughed and gave him a thumbs up. A voice inside her head continuously repeated that she wished this situation were entirely different. She had gone from thinking she might have sex with Robert fucking Ackroyd to have Robert fucking Ackroyd sit on her couch, covering his damn erection with one of the vintage pillows she had bought last week. And now she had to open a door and let in her manager who was probably furious and Chris who would most likely pee himself laughing if he figured any of this out. 

She took a deep breath and opened the door. She didn’t look into the mirror on purpose because she was sure she looked like a mess. Mairead basically jumped towards her as soon as the door opened and started to look at her from all directions. “Girl, seriously, never do this again! I get rung in the middle of dinner and hear you were in a club fight? And then I call you dozens of times and you don’t pick up?” She shoved Flo inside her house, while Chris looked at her apologetically. “Mairead, chill, I told you they’d be alright.” She rolled her eyes at her boyfriend and took two big steps into Flo’s house. Rob waved with a slightly weird looking smile when Mairead discovered him in the living room. She sighed and looked back at Flo who was still standing the hallway. Her posture was awkward and she clearly signaled that she was sorry. 

“As I see you two are quite alright. Why didn’t you answer any of our calls?” She raised an eyebrow at both of them and Flo shrugged. “We…we listened to some music and probably didn’t hear…the phones.”  
“Aha. And you didn’t think about informing me that you just got beaten up in a club and that you…” She looked a Rob and raised an eyebrow. “Got into a fistfight with some drunken guy…seriously, people! I thought we were kind of over the teenagers in trouble phase?” Flo and Rob exchanged glares, not quite knowing how to react. Meanwhile Chris stood in the background, leaning against a shelf. He gave them pitiful looks, seemed kind of like the third sibling that didn’t mess it up and had to watch mum giving a speech.  
“Look Mairead, we are sorry. I was such a stupid idea, it…” Mairead sighed.  
“Flo, I get you’re sorry. And I’m glad you do know it was fucking dumb to jump a stage without security. But the thing is…I kind of see you doing it again.” Mairead looked back at Chris, hoping to receive some support in her cause from him but he didn’t react and seemed to scan the room instead.  
“I didn’t have a problem with it.” Rob suddenly said, even though Flo knew perfectly well that this wasn’t true. “It was my fault as much as it was hers.”  
“Oh Robert, you don’t have to tell me that. I know you “ she looked at Flo. “can be naïve sometimes, but I at least thought you “ her glare turned towards Rob. “would be sensible enough to calm things down and not make them worse. I actually received a call from a lawyer, at 11 pm…As I understand the guy whose nose you broke is a bank manager. And he’s pissed off beyond belief.”  
Flo’s jaw dropped. “He broke his nose?” She asked and turned towards Rob. Why had he not mentioned that to her?  
“I was mad. It was an accident.” Rob said while not facing any of them. He suddenly seemed very fascinated by the pillow in his lap. Chris seemed to check the pillow out as well and looked to Flo and then to Rob again a couple of times. Flo realized her hair was a mess and she tried to comb it with her fingers. She failed, of course, getting stuck in a knot, feeling like an idiot. “He pushed her and I feared he’d attack her again if I didn’t interfere. And one thing let to another.”  
Flo stayed silent. The man who had pushed her had made Rob so mad that he had broken his nose. This seemed so unlike him, he had never been the guy to punch people. Not even when he was drunk.  
“He probably deserved it.” Chris said, still standing in the back, seeming somewhat amused. Mairead turned around and rolled her eyes. “Yes, sure you would think that. But don’t you think it’s sort of Neanderthal, solving things with your fist?” She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked at her boyfriend like they were having a competition.  
“Well, if someone attacked you, I’d punch him where the sun doesn’t shine, that’s for sure. And I wouldn’t have the time to think if my reaction were Neanderthal or not. He tried to defend, Flo…okay? I think that’s a pretty good reason to smash someone’s face a little.” Chris stepped towards his girlfriend and straightened himself, making clear no one should mess with him. Mairead shook her head and turned towards Rob again. She didn’t change her facial expression fast enough though, so Flo still spotted a sly smile on her face.  
“Alright, alright, but I don’t want to know what our dear Mr. Ackroyd does when someone attacks HIS lady.” Rob still didn’t look up and either his ears turned horribly read or the light changed its color way in milliseconds so that Flo would have to be worried about soon suffering a seizure.  
Instead of dwelling on Mairead’s comment, Rob simply declared in a calm voice: “I overreacted. It just happened. I’m sorry.” He finally looked up, directly at Flo. His eyes didn’t reflect regret though, there was something else, a deep feeling that Flo couldn’t quite pinpoint. For some reason the words “I am not sorry, I would always do it again to defend you” came into her mind. She was sure her love struck brain was just making them up, while she could still feel his soft lips on hers. Now that he was looking at her, with his warm brown eyes, all the sensations she had felt just a minute ago returned and they took her breath away for a moment. Part of her imagined that he had sent her a telepathic message, and she tried to send one back to him. “I don’t regret anything that has happened, because it made us do the most wonderful of things” She half expected him to stand up and declare that he felt the same way about their kisses, their touches, their closeness but she was disappointed. Rob look away from her to Mairead.  
“Don’t you think that’s enough for today? I think we should talk about how to handle this tomorrow. It is late. Flo and I were about to go to bed. She’s is not feeling very well, because of her head injury.” His voice was serious and his facial expressions honest. Flo was amazed at how well he could lie.  
Mairead sighed and looked at Flo. She seemed very concerned and walked over to her, examining her head like a worried mother.  
“You should cool this. I hope the medics took a proper look at you.”  
“I made sure they did” Rob said, sounding like a big brother rather than how Flo wanted him to sound. This entire situation confused her. Seeing as everybody was talking about her head, she started feeling pain again. Maybe she should really lie down. Chris suddenly appeared next to her and held up the bag of ice that she had held to her head before. “Maybe you could use this” he said while waving it in front of her face.  
“Oh, I must’ve dropped that.”  
“When you were listening to music, I assume” he countered and the sheepish grin she had spotted earlier returned to his face.  
“Yes” she simply said, took the bag out of his hand rather fast and demonstratively pressed it against her bump.  
Instead of being satisfied with her answer, he looked down at her with a skeptical frown. “Why are you wearing a coat?”  
“I …er…am cold.” Flo pretended to shudder.  
“The heater is on, it’s actually really warm in here.” Chris sounded like a detective that was talking to a murder suspect.  
“Are you sure, you are okay?” Mairead stepped between Chris and Flo and held her hand to Flo’s forehead.  
“Step aside, sweetie, this isn’t about her being sick.”  
“It isn’t?” Mairead and Flo spoke at the same time. While Mairead’s voice was full of surprise, Flo’s sounded painfully awkward. He couldn’t have noticed anything, could he? She took a quick glance at Rob, hoping that would calm her down, but he pulled a face that basically screamed “he could be on to us”.  
“Well, I ask myself if your sickness is really the reason why Rob wants us to leave.” Chris took two big steps and sat down next to his friend, wrapping one arm around his shoulder, leaning towards him, still grinning like an idiot.  
“Nice pillow you have there.”  
“Oh yes, it’s a vintage one, I bought it from the flea market.” Flo answered without thinking and realized she didn’t explain anything about Rob’s attachment to that pillow.  
“Yes, yes, I think it looks good. I like pillows.” Rob said quickly.  
“Aha, would you mind if I checked it out too? Mairead and I need some inspiration for pillows in our bedroom.” Chris grabbed the pillow faster than Rob could hold it. He turned it around in his hands, looking at it as if it were a piece of art. In this very second Rob awkwardly checked out his crotch, only to realize that a certain someone was still quite visible. A stream of blood rushed into Flo’s head and she felt how her face turned red. While her mind stopped working and started screaming in embarrassment, her instincts made her jump towards a box of records, which she dropped on his lap quite violently. Rob let out a painful moan. “Sorry” she mouthed, half smiling, when Chris turned around. His cheeky smile faded away quickly and he raised an eyebrow when he discovered the box on Rob’s lap.  
“What? And now you like records?”  
“You got something against records, Hayden?” Rob asked provocatively and smiled like he just won a bet.  
Chris looked at Flo, seeming quite impressed. “Got nothing against records, folks.” He clapped Rob’s back a couple of times and stood up in a very egile manner, almost jumping.  
“I think we should leave them alone now, Mairead.” He winked at both of them and Flo couldn’t stop asking herself if he knew and if yes, how much. Simultaneously wondering how much she actually knew about Rob and herself.  
“If you all insist…. But promise me guys, we will talk about this. This isn’t just some silly thing like steeling a sign or yelling some obscenities.” She looked at all three of them closely, stopping at Flo. “And you promise me to lay down as soon as we leave and rest. I don’t need you to run around with a concussion. Got it?” Flo nodded fast and far longer than she should have. “And you pay attention that she does what I say.” Mairead pointed at Rob and narrowed her eyebrows. “Got it?”  
“Yes, he got it, sweetheart. Just relax. Everything’s under control…at least when it comes to that party incident.” He glanced sideways into the direction of Rob’s lap. His eyes wandered to Rob’s, who smiled broadly, holding the box like he had just won it in the lottery.  
Mairead sighed. “Whatever it is you’re implying, Chris. I doubt it’s more important than the reason we came here, so it can wait for tomorrow too.” She yawned. “I have enough crap to deal with tomorrow….that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Trust me, you don’t want any of your band members to date, it’s such fucking chaos. At least you are just beating up party guests, which I can sell as rock star behavior.” She laughed but Flo turned as white as a piece of paper.  
“Wha-what do you mean?” She asked, slapping herself from the inside for asking a second later.  
“Can’t talk about it right now but – “Chris interrupted her quickly. “As you said, it’s late, we need to move our asses to bed. Not to mention I need to rub my hot, firm body against yours.” He looked at Flo apologetically and seemed like he wanted to say something but a loud, annoyed voice came from behind him.  
“Too much information” Rob couched. Chris turned towards him and shrugged. “Just because you are apparently not getting enough action” Flo wasn’t sure if she just imagined that Chris looked in her direction and back to Rob when he said that “it doesn’t mean I can’t brag about my excellent sex-“  
“As he said, Christopher, too much information” Mairead grabbed her boyfriend’s shirt and dragged him towards the hall.  
“Alright, alright…good night it is then. But remember, Bobby, sex is easier without constantly keeping objects on your lap…you should opt for humans instead…” He winked, seemingly not only at Rob but also at Flo, who quickly looked down. What the hell was going on and how did they get into this stupid situation?  
“Despite his remarks” Mairead laughed. “I wish you a good night, sweethearts. Sleep well…and I really mean sleep.” She looked at Flo one last time before both of them disappeared through the front door. 

And alone they were. Both didn’t look at each other for what seemed like half an hour to Flo. She stood in the middle of her living room motionless and didn’t know how to start a conversation with him or to even do anything besides breathing. Suddenly Rob started laughing. He didn’t stop for quite a while and she turned towards him. He laughed so hard that the records in the box kept crashing against each other, making funny noises that began sounding like a drum beat to Flo.  
“What?” She asked, half laughing herself.  
“Well…that was close, you know.”  
“Yeaaah” She said, looking at him unsure of what to do. Should she walk towards the coach, remove the stupid box and touch him the way she wanted him to, continue what they had begun? Despite of her obvious needs she didn’t move, she looked at the floor for a minute, laughing with him. When they became silent again, she looked up shyly. “Now what?” She asked and it suddenly felt as if her life depended on his answer.  
“As I said before, we should go to bed, you need to rest” He said, again sounding like her older brother. She felt how a rope was put around her neck.  
“Alright” She said, feeling like she stood on a wonky chair while the rope was knotted to a bar underneath the ceiling.  
Rob stood up and put the box next to the couch. Flo didn’t dare to check if his erection was still there, she assumed though that he must’ve cooled down by now, especially judging by the way he was acting. He wasn’t quite jumping at her and ripping her clothes off. She wanted to say something, ask him what all this meant, but she stayed silent and just stared at him, her mouth half open.  
“You wanna say something?”  
“No” she almost whispered.  
“Alright. I was afraid you’d be mad. Alcohol makes you do funny things, but you know that well, right?”  
“Yes” she whispered again and felt how the chair broke underneath her. She fell and hung from the ceiling, the rope tightening around her neck.  
“Good night then. And keep cooling your head.” He said, before turning around and walking towards the guest room. She was left standing there like a lost child, while her inner self struggled for oxygen, fighting with the rope.  
“I wasn’t drunk and I want you so badly it kills me” she wanted to shout but the lack of air inside her lungs made her mouth it only. Her words floated in the air, but he would never hear them. So he only heard the silent “Good night” that would’ve been almost cold had her disappointment not left a little mark at the end by making her sigh. He turned around one last time and smiled. His smile rammed itself into her like a sword and she smiled back, looking like a desperate clown. Her awkward wave as he began walking towards the guestroom again completed the picture, a picture that she wanted to throw into a river to wash off every last piece of color.  
She thought about following him. She thought about giving up and going to her bedroom, trying to sleep for the entire night, while lying awake and staring at the door to the guestroom, hoping to hear him breathe. She did neither of these things. Instead she quickly grabbed her phone, typed in Isa’s number and rushed out of the living room, into the hall, opened the front door and ran outside. 

Rob heard the front door close. He quickly ran out of the guestroom into the living room and looked around confused. “Flo?” he asked into the silent house. He ran into the kitchen, her room, the bathroom. Then he looked out of the bathroom window onto the street. There was a tall, thin shape turning around the corner. Her red hair was illuminated by the street lights, he could see half of her pale face. Her expression was blank. He quickly ripped open the window. “Florence!” he yelled but she didn’t stop, walked only faster. For a second he considered following her, running until he had reached her. Then he remembered who he was dealing with. He sighed and closed the window violently. She would come back, in the morning she would be back with a clear head. And then he would have to talk to her.


	12. Grief and Pleasure

Flo’s heart was beating fast when she ran outside, her phone pressed to her ear. The dial tone almost made her mad. “Please pick up, pick up” she whispered. Isa could be in all kinds of places, could do all kinds of things more important than being constantly available to her. Then finally she heard Isa’s familiar voice.   
“Heya, what’s up?” She sounded cheerful and happy. Flo felt bad for approaching her with a serious issue. For a second she considered faking good mood, hoping a simple conversation with Isa could cheer her up.   
“Hey” she said, her voice tired and weak. She hadn’t intended to sound like that but she had to be honest with herself. She sounded like she felt.   
“So I assume you’re back from the party? I hoped you’d stay longer to be honest” Flo could almost see Isa wink at her. She suddenly realized that they had left the party merely some hours ago, it seemed to her like days had passed.   
“Well, it was still eventful enough” She sighed. For a second she considered going somewhere specific but then she decided to just walk wherever her feet took her. Walk and talk. That was always a good way for her to sort out her thoughts. The best thing would be to write a song but that wasn’t an option right now. So she gave Isa a summary of what had happened during Rob’s DJ set. She half expected her reaction.   
“Since you’re assuring me that you’re alright…hah! A club fight! I wish I had been there!” Her voice sounded like an entire army of excited football fans looking forward to throw bottles onto the pitch.  
“Oh, you don’t wish that, trust me. Mairead is furious.” Flo wished that would be the only thing she had problems with. A furious Mairead would be relatively easy to calm down, especially with Isa’s advice.   
“Come on, she’ll calm down ‘til tomorrow.” She assured in a calm voice, only to return to her football hooligan voice. “That was rockstarish, seriously! I would’ve made it even more epic, maybe grabbing a couple of drinks and smashing them everywhere…but Rob beating up that guy because of you, how very gentlemanlike.” Isa seemed way more excited than Flo wanted her to be. Actually she would probably laugh about the entire incident by now had it not been for what had happened afterwards.   
“It was maybe a bit too gentlemanlike. Not to mention violence doesn’t turn me on.” Flo tried to wiggle herself out of the current topic, she had to somehow bring across to Isa how she felt at the moment. But Isa was still not quite picking up on what was going on.   
“So you’re not the slightest bit flattered that he broke a guy’s nose for you? Let me tell you, not every man does this for-“ she continued babbling in a cheerful way.   
“Isa look, I’m not calling you about this club fight.” Flo sighed and felt like a policewoman announcing the death of a relative to someone.   
“Oh… So you aren’t calling me from prison right now, waiting for Mairead to pay the bail?” Isa’s voice shifted, not sure what to expect.   
“No…no, I’m taking a walk.” Flo’s voice suddenly became silent.   
“At 1 am? That doesn’t sound good. Flo? What happened?” Concern drowned all of the joyful sound that had come from Isa before.   
“I think I fucked up.” Flo said, walking faster than she should have, slightly trembling.   
“How exactly?”  
“I…I almost…slept with him.” Flo felt like her own words were choking her.   
“Wow…I mean…I didn’t think you’d go through with it…” Isa didn’t say anything for a second, while Flo realized the street underneath her feet was changing, she was walking on cobblestone. Still she didn’t feel like looking up to check where she was. “Were you drunk?” Isa interrupted her when she was about to count the stones her feet were passing.   
“No. At least I wasn’t.”  
“So he was?”  
“I…I don’t know. I didn’t think he was but…”  
“But? What kept you from sleeping with him? Since you said almost?”  
“Mairead and Chris” That sounded silly, almost as if she had asked them for permission and they hadn’t given it. Thinking about it they probably wouldn’t have.   
“You thought about them and felt so bad you didn’t go through with it? If so I am appalled you didn’t think of me first…”   
“No, no…they came. They came looking for us, since someone informed them about the fight.”  
“And you two were in the middle of…action?” She could hear Isa gasp.   
“Yes.” Flo felt her cheeks burn. Just thinking back made her feel so embarrassed she wanted to jump into a river and lay on the ground where no one would find her.   
“Did they see anything?”  
“I’m not sure. But at the moment I…well, I do care about that but the worst part is his reaction…after they left. He seemed repellent and…he dismissed the entire thing by saying that…you do weird things when you’re drunk.”  
“Ouch. And there I thought Rob was sensitive.”  
“Well, he probably meant it. He probably acted in the spur of a moment. He couldn’t have known what I am feeling right now. And I, the idiot, gave in without thinking of his motives because it felt so fucking good.” She sighed and wanted to slap herself. At the moment she felt like the most stupid person in the world.   
“Florence! Stop! Never tell me you’re an idiot for making out with a guy you have the hots for!”  
“But I should’ve…thought about why he did it. Because seriously, why should he want to sleep with me all of a sudden?”  
“Why do you want to sleep with him all of a sudden?”  
“I…I don’t know it just…happened…”  
“Exactly. Sometimes things just happen. That doesn’t mean they are wrong or not honest. Maybe he was just…uncomfortable and insecure. Like you.” Isa countered Flo’s confused rambling with something that actually made a lot of sense. Flo wanted to think about the possibility, but a voice in her head told her not to feel too comfortable about a possibility.   
“Maybe you’re…you’re right, I…just don’t know. The entire scenario was ridiculous and embarrassing and uncomfortable. But the thing is…I am afraid for myself. Before today I thought that maybe…maybe if I gave into my feelings I would discover that they are not real, that it’s just a silly crush, a phase I’d get over. That wasn’t the case though, not at all. It felt so good. I mean I have no idea how it was like for him but for me…I think my brain would’ve melted if we had actually had sex. Why are you laughing?” Flo almost felt insulted when she heard Isa giggle at the other end of the phone.   
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry, it’s just interesting to hear a firsthand account of our Bobby’s skills as a lover.” Flo couldn’t help but grin. If someone had told her just a year ago she’d have this conversation with Isa while walking around confusedly in the middle of the night, she would’ve thought to be inside one of her weird dreams.   
“Who would’ve thought that I of all people would give it to you?” She exclaimed.   
“Hm, if someone had started a betting game about it, I would’ve probably put my money on you.” Isa confessed.   
“Seriously?” Flo suddenly asked herself how many people had wondered about the nature of her relationship with Rob in the past.  
“Totally. Out of all the women I know, who else should sleep with him?” Flo quickly went through the people they both knew and decided that she should in fact be the only woman, the idea of anybody else sleeping with him suddenly gave her stomach cramps.   
“Well, it’s not like there’s some competition going on…besides I haven’t slept with him.”  
“Yet. My dear, yet.”  
“Judging by how he treated me, I doubt it. Also there something I haven’t told you.”  
“He got himself a new girlfriend?”  
“W-what? No, no! Mairead was pissed off when she arrived. And it seemed it wasn’t just about us. Just before she left she started talking about how band members should never date. How it only created chaos. And Rob and I were right next to her. I felt like she bitch slapped us without knowing. Or maybe she did know and wanted to…voice her disapproval or something.”  
“Honestly? It’s like you always come up with something new to worry about! Come on, you have no idea what she was talking about but…she has known you for years, I doubt she gives a fuck about your sex lives unless it involves something life threatening. I bet she was just talking about something that had nothing to do with you. Just because another band – and mind you, we have no idea who she had in mind – might have issues with this, doesn’t mean you will. Besides…you aren’t dating yet.”  
“Very far from dating.” Was the only thing she stupidly had to say after hearing Isa’s yet again sensible answer. She knew she was making a drama out of everything. The thing was just that she was scared and unsure about everything. And every tiny thing that had happened today hadn’t exactly made it better. In fact she felt like everything was worse than it had been this morning. On the positive side she could say that she now knew how it felt like to be almost as close to Rob as she could be. On the negative side there was a chance he considered never to do it again, while she was longing so desperately for it that she had to stop in the middle of the street and take a deep breath. She looked around herself, everything was dark, a park was across from her, the trees appearing to be spooky creatures looking over her shoulders. “Fuck, Isa, I wish this had never happened.” She sighed, felt like the trees were judging her. “Now that I know how it feels like touching him that way…getting touched, honestly…his hands are…very skillful.” She was about to start rambling in detail about every part of his body she had seen, while wanting to hide.   
“I have never doubted that, looking at how he handles those guitar strings.” Isa’s voice was cheerful again, but there was a sound of comfort in it, like she specifically decided to speak that way so that Flo had a rope to hold onto, so that she wouldn’t freak out.   
“Yes, yes…he…God, and the way he kisses and his smell and…his…” Heat started rising up in her as the memories embraced her, warm and hot and so good and so wrong.   
“I hope you don’t tend to inform me about the size of his dick now or I might either be very, very disturbed …or slightly jealous.” Flo laughed, feeling like a school girl that got turned on in church.   
“Hm, let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed …at all. Damn! I have no idea how to even look at him again!” She tried to cover half of her face with her hand in embarrassment when she realized that no one saw her.   
“Meet up with him and keep your eyes open…” Flo imagined how Isa stuck her tongue out to her.   
“Oh stop it with your useless, sarcastic comments! I’m serious. I…feel like hiding from him.” Flo cringed. Part of her never wanted to see him again, part of her wanted to jump him and another part wanted to invent a time machine and erase everything from the moment the stupid girl had approached her at that stupid party.   
“No way…no way! You are going back home right now and talk to him.” Isa sounded scarily persistent, but that didn’t help.   
“I can’t. Gosh, Isa, you didn’t see how he looked at me! As if I was his freakin’ little sister. He probably wanted to beat himself up after he realized what we had done! He probably felt caught by Mairead and decided to forget it. And I? I will look at him for the rest of my life, knowing how his hands feel like on my body, yet I will never touch him that way again. Brilliant.” She felt how the panicky side of her took control again and made her ramble.   
Isa’s eye roll traveled across the Atlantic. “You are such a drama queen, Flo. How about talking to him, before you lay a million thoughts into his head? Ask him about why he reacted that way and tell him why you reacted the way you did. Because I doubt he thinks this turned out well with you running away.”  
“I know…I know but…I just can’t right now. I don’t even know what I want. Or what’s right or –“  
“What did I say the last time we spoke? Stop reflecting everything. I think in the end the best way of finding out what you want and what is right is by trying.”  
Flo sighed. She knew Isa was right but the thought alone to return to her house and confront him killed her. There was no way she could do it at the moment. She needed to be alone a bit longer, she needed some more time to pass.   
“You won’t return home, right?” Isa sighed.   
“I…I’m sorry, I don’t think I can.”  
“Alright…I expected it. It’s okay. But just let me know where you are going. I don’t want you to get lost in the middle of the night.”  
“I…I think that’s too late.”  
“Oh boy…you don’t know where you are?”  
“I…I don’t think, no.”  
“Google Maps. Open it. Right now.”  
“I deleted that app.”  
“WHAT?”  
“I don’t like knowing where I am all the time.”  
“Flo, no offence, but sometimes I just wanna shoot you!”  
“You don’t have a gun.”  
“Who says I can’t buy one?”

They continued bantering for hours, while Flo was just walking around, didn’t even feel like her feet hurt. Isa kept trying to send her home several times, but she always talked her way out of it and kept walking. As long as she could walk and be distracted everything was alright. As long as she could delay her return home she could pretend nothing was bothering her. Then Isa’s voice suddenly disappeared. Flo removed her phone from her ears, looked at it confused. She pressed all buttons a couple of times, until she realized that it was dead. Fuck. She looked around herself, she was somewhere in the outskirts. Suddenly she felt how much her feet hurt. Thankfully there was a little park next to her. She left the street and entered it. A couple of meters inside there was a lovely wooden bench. She liked it and decided it would be her hiding place for the next couple of hours, until she felt brave enough to face Rob. If he hadn’t run away too at that point. 

*

She opened her eyes only to discover that she was in a familiar place. This time she was leaning against the wooden wall, could feel how the wind blew through the wood laths behind her back. This time she looked around curiously. The mattress in the back was empty. She was relieved about that at first but then she started wondering if the clown figure might be somewhere else. She moved her head quickly, scanning the room. Front, back, the corners…the room was completely empty besides the dirty mattress that was lying across from her. Suddenly she felt like something was missing, she felt abandoned and alone. Why did the clown leave? Was he hiding? Or did he run away? Was he a threat or was he just scared? Had he never existed in this new version of her dream at all? Flo slowly stood up, turning around carefully, searching the floor. There was no letter. Who would tell her what to do then? She walked towards the window, pulled her sleeve over her palm and started to rub the dirt away. The piercing sunlight of the desert touched her eyes and blinded her for a moment. As she started to regain her eyesight she saw a silhouette standing outside. It was coming towards the hut, tall and dark. Flo wanted to jump away from the window, hide but her curiosity took the better of her. Her face stayed fixed in front of the window as if she was watching a compelling thriller. Who or what could this be? A person or maybe the clown? Suddenly the figure gained speed, it approached her like a racing car. She automatically stepped back, trying to shield her body from a possible crash. The figure stopped shortly before the window though, staring at her emotionless. Her blood seemed to freeze and clog her arteries, it felt like a heart attack. Rob’s face was staring at her, wild and damaged by the sun and wind, as if he had been in the desert for weeks. His eyes were bland though, his mouth half open. His head turned sideways as he examined her. Her breathing stopped when she realized that he was wearing the clown suit.   
“Do something” he mouthed and everything turned black. 

*

Rob wanted to go to sleep. He continuously tried to tell himself that she was going to be alright. It wasn’t the first time she was wandering around at night and it would probably not be the last. She had always returned save and sound, why should it be any different this time? Because she had a concussion and because he had upset her. He felt like a fucking coward, which wasn’t the most usual feeling for him. But damn it, he deserved to think of himself that way. Since when was it his style to back away from a woman he had wanted to sleep with just minutes ago? Since when was he constantly bothered by self-doubt regarding his own feelings? His relationship to Flo was professional, it was a deep friendship, yes, but they had a job to do and to do this job properly it was highly recommended that they didn’t screw each other. Thus when she had turned from the cute, slightly dorky girl he had first met into one of the most gorgeous women he knew he had just pushed any thoughts about getting into her pants aside. The fact that he had secretly wanted to get into her pants when she had still been the dorky girl he had pushed aside even further. Their closeness and flirting and touching he had put into the “friends can do this” category, even if they had ended up sharing hotel rooms like she did with Isa, part of himself would’ve probably pulled it off to convince him that he didn’t want to touch her in a dirty kind of way. In reality though this was bullshit. It had always been bullshit. Even his long term girlfriend, that has been his ex for quite a while now, had been jealous of Flo. Not of Isa or any of his other, admittedly numbered female friends…no, only of Flo. And he had constantly teased her about it to prove it was baseless. The most awkward conversation he had ever had about Flo had been with Katy though. He still couldn’t believe he had sat in bed with Katy Parry, post-sex, discussing why he had never fucked Flo. Being in bed with someone who suddenly blurted out that Flo was pretty much a goddess had been weird enough. But then she had continued questioning him, all the time they were dating, because she couldn’t believe he had never slept with Flo and wanted to know why. He had told her that Flo was like a little sister to him, just seconds before she had walked past them wearing the most gorgeous gown, her hair up, wearing just the perfect amount of makeup and looking like the most graceful fairytale creature. Apparently his eyes had sparkled like diamonds when he had followed her every move, which he, as he repeatedly had tried to tell Katy, had not noticed. She had just imagined it, of course. 

She had probably not imagined it. Yet just some hours ago he had tried to make Florence herself believe that it was all a mistake, something that didn’t mean a thing to him. Which was the biggest bloody crap he had said in ages. He checked out the clock on the kitchen wall. It was 3:30 am. She was gone since two and a half hours. What on earth was she doing? He imagined her somewhere in a dark corner, alone, while eyes watched her and hunted her. 

He looked at his phone. He had resisted to call her numerous times but now he wondered it if it was worth the pain. Just when he picked up the phone, it started to ring. He held his breath before he realized who it was.   
“Hey? What’s up?” He asked, wanting to sound innocent but he suspected she probably knew every little detail and called him to rip his head off.   
“Oh, just that our best friend is running away from you in the middle of the night. Except for that I’m all chilled as usually.”  
He sighed. Of course she knew.  
“Isa, it’s a long story, I…”  
“Don’t mind the story, I have listened to nothing else for the past couple of hours.”  
“So you know where she is?”  
“Hah, I can’t track phones, Scotland Yard didn’t want to hire me, remember? I just talked to her, for a pretty long while.”  
“Is she….okay?”  
“She’s not going to kill herself, if you are wondering about that. You aren’t that important, Bobby. But she’s not in the best of moods, either. And I tried to give her some advice, you know how it goes.”  
“Did you tell her to come back home?”  
“I did. But she couldn’t. You know how it’s like with her…if she can’t confront things, she can potentially hide for weeks and…I didn’t want to push her.”  
“Well, can you call her now and tell her I’m worried?”  
“I can’t. Her phone died. That’s why I can actually speak to you, because otherwise I’d probably still sing songs with her while she walks through god knows where.”  
“So you tell me she walked through town without any direction and you sang songs with her and now you don’t know where the hell she is?”  
“Yes”  
“Isa…sometimes I am wondering if you don’t let too many things pass when it comes to her.”  
“Oh, you tell me…She ran away after you were being an idiot after all! I just tried to calm her down, while you probably slept or whatever the hell you were doing”  
“She…she told you everything that happened?”  
“Of course. And don’t tell me now that you think it’s a good idea to ignore what you’ve done and pretend you were drunk. I am pretty damn sure you weren’t drunk at all. I adore you, Rob, truly but if you think I’ll let you make out with my best friend and then change your mind and lie yourself out of it, then you don’t know me at all.”  
“Listen, it was…it’s complicated, I was being stupid, I know that…I…”  
“Keep that for Flo, Rob. We need to figure out where she is now. I’m afraid if you don’t find her, she won’t come back on her own for a while. And as much as I adore her, I can’t fly back to go and see her over this. So you better fix it on your own.”  
“Yes, yes, this is what I intend to do but…where did she go? You just let her wander around and didn’t ask her what she sees?”  
“I was preoccupied with our conversation, mind you. Also I am not a private investigator, I didn’t try to figure out what I was hearing behind her or something…And before you ask…I didn’t record the call, either.”  
“So how the hell are we supposed to find her then?”  
“By using our profiler skills.”  
“No offence, Summers, but I don’t remember you being a profiler either.”  
“It’s easier than you think…well, hopefully…Having listened to countless stories of Flo walking around London when she couldn’t sleep…I noticed a pattern.”  
“What?”  
“Look, she has done this a million times over the years and she loves telling me about what she saw. And depending on her mood, she goes to specific places.”  
“And so you think her sub-consciousness took her to these places, even though she didn’t pay attention where she was going?”  
“Exactly”  
“This kind of sounds like weird New Age crap”  
“Oh, you can try and go find her on your own, if you think that’s better.”  
“No, no, that’s not how I meant it. But what if it doesn’t work?”  
“You’re sounding like Flo now. Worry about that when it actually doesn’t work.”

*

When Flo woke up it was still dark. Since the street lantern next to her was broken, only the dim orange light coming from London’s centre illuminated the park. A cold breeze swept past her and she wrapped the coat more tightly around her body, folding her arms in front of her chest. She wanted to stand up and run back home, but especially her dream kept her tied to the bench. She wanted to tell herself that dreams didn’t mean anything, that they were just images her sub consciousness created to deal with what she saw every day. This dream just informed her that a huge space in her mind was filled with Rob, something that shouldn’t surprise her. Somewhere inside her however she was convinced that she should act according to the dream. Rob wanted her to do something or her sub consciousness wanted her to think that was the case. She should go back home and fix this but where to start?

Just when she was about to fall into another one of her endless inner monologues she heard footsteps. At first the part that was left of her silly teenage self expected it to be Rob, turning up to save her from herself like a knight. She wanted to close her eyes and wait until he had reached her, maybe until he had placed his hand carefully on her shoulder. Then her paranoid self woke up. She was in a park, alone, in the middle of the night! Her phone was dead! And somebody was coming, and no, it would definitively not be Robert Ackroyd! She quickly turned around. A tall, bulky figure was appearing in the back of the street. Fuck. But maybe it was just a wanderer like her, someone who couldn’t sleep? Maybe it was a totally drunk guy who would have a field day discovering her. She looked around herself. What should she do? Run? Stay where she was and pretend she didn’t exist? Maybe it was so dark that he wouldn’t even see her. “Heya lady, what are you doing here all alone?” she heard a loud, deep voice coming from the man who was just feet away from her now. She wanted to ignore him or come up with a smart answer but unfortunately her body played a trick on her mind and a truckload of stress hormones took control of her. Suddenly the dark face she couldn’t identify turned into a round, bulky face, anger all over it. He wore the same expensive, badly fitting clothes as he had in the club. He came towards her and waved his fist at her. She jumped up and ran like a madwoman into the park.   
She ran and ran as fast as she could. Her mind wasn’t controlling her feet, her instincts were. This is also why she didn’t see the thorns in the bush that she crawled under to hide from him. They got stuck in her coat and her hair and left marks on her hands and face. Her heart was pumping fast and she was almost hyperventilating when she lay on the grass, cowering underneath the bush. She tried to count to calm herself down, tried to think of something else. Minutes passed, an hour which she spent listening to every tiny sound around herself, even when the raindrops started falling, she hoped to hear him approach. After two hours, it was already dawning, she fell asleep, wet and cold. 

*

Rob walked through the rain, he cursed himself for not having taken an umbrella. His hair, jeans and shoes were completely soaked, thankfully his leather jacket kept the water from reaching his upper body. He had switched off the phone a couple of minutes ago, fearing it might break. Isa had led him through what seemed like entire Camberwell and beyond. She had left him saying that he should look for parks now, trees, benches. That’s where Flo was likely to hide. Isa had assured him that the rain probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. Now though he just wanted to give up. He didn’t remember when he had last been that wet; it must’ve been at a festival of sorts. At least then it probably had been somewhat bearable. Not like now, when he desperately looked for her, not even knowing what he’d do if he actually found her. Just when he was about to turn around and look for a cab back, a small public park appeared at the end of the street. This would be his last chance for now, he decided. His walk speeded up when he reached the park’s gate. There was a tiny, old bench next to a broken streetlamp that was barely glimming as the day began sharing its light with the London outskirts. There was only one small path leading through the park, from afar he could see a few more benches, trees and bushes. The park seemed empty. Nevertheless he decided to walk through it, just to be sure. He looked carefully around during each step. He also looked up at the treetops, because he knew her obsession with climbing trees. And knowing how she was like when she was preoccupied with her own mind, she probably wouldn’t even have thought of bolts while climbing a tree during a rainstorm. He was half relieved when he didn’t discover her. His heart began feeling heavier again when he reached the end of the park. She was nowhere in sight. There wasn’t even a single soul he could ask if they had seen her. He sighed and made his way back to the entrance of the park. He would have to go home. She would return eventually, maybe in a couple of hours, maybe in a day or two. But she would come back. So he should get a fucking grip and not let her know how he had spent hours and hours, dripping like a wet dog, looking for her. Not to mention Isa would probably do this task for him, since Flo and her practically shared a brain anyway

“Rob?” He suddenly heard a weak voice very far in the back. Goosebumps ran all over his back when he recognized it.   
“Flo!” He almost yelled and was shocked at himself when he began running into the direction the voice had come from. At first he couldn’t find her but then she said his name again, sounding half asleep. He looked down. There she was, directly in front of his feet. She was almost completely hidden underneath a tick bush. Her clothes were dirty and wet and her face was full of mud and scratches. He sank down quickly and grabbed her hands.   
“Jeez Flo, what are you doing down there?” He said in a relatively calm voice but he actually just wanted to hug her and never let her go.   
“I…I was hiding” she said matter-of-factly. Her teeth were clattering and she almost stuttered. Her lips were practically blue. He had to get her out of there. God knew how long she had been laying there, on the cold ground, completely soaked. He helped her to crawl out of the bush and lifted her up. She didn’t look at him, her eyes were focusing on something or nothing behind him.   
“I’m sorry” she said, her voice became even weaker and she was trembling.   
“It’s okay… I am sorry” he said and drew her into an almost violent hug. Her thin body leaned against him like a puppet and he was shocked at how cold she was. He had to bring her home, get her into dry clothes, make her a bath, put her to bed and wrap her inside a dozen of blankets.   
“Is it okay if I take you home?” He whispered into her ear while still holding her tightly. “Yes” she whispered back, he wasn’t sure if she had even been capable of saying it aloud. He slowly let go of her only to wrap his arm around her shoulders and guide her out of the park.

*

They took a cab to her place. It didn’t stop raining all the way back. She just leaned against him, not caring what had been or what would be. Everything was about feeling comfortable and safe, and he made her feel exactly that. He had found her. She had no idea how, even though she had vaguely recognized her surroundings when they had left the park. Somehow she was sure that Isa had send him, she didn’t care though, it was one of these few moments when she managed to kick her bad suspicions and concentrate on how good she felt. Screw the fact that she was wearing wet clothes that were as heavy as bricks or that she had scratches all over her face and hands. Or that she could barely speak and would probably have a bad cold tomorrow. She would have enough time to think about every single one of these things in detail later. 

When he closed the door behind them, he directly helped her to take off her cloak. She laughed when he threw it carelessly into the little closet next to the entrance, his own jacket followed.   
“I guess someone here needs to take a bath” he said, while looking at her, his face full of pity but also care. She couldn’t help but smile at the funny curls the water had given to his hair.   
“I guess two someones” she said before realizing what this could potentially mean.   
“Oh don’t worry, I’ll get dry, but you were out there for hours, come on” he said and before she could protest he led her to the bathroom. He pulled the chair she normally folded her clothes on next to the bathtub and made her sit down on it. Then he grabbed her bathrobe and wrapped it around her.   
“Stay here, don’t move a muscle. I’ll do this” His eyes were so full of calmness and gentleness that she could barely keep herself from simply kissing him. He moved away from her to the bathtub and opened the tab. His left hand quickly checked the temperature until it was right.   
“I…I was an idiot for running away” she said, her voice cracking slightly.   
He looked away from her at the tub and sighed.   
“I was an idiot for pretending nothing had happened” he answered, softly gliding his hand through the water, acting as if it were a fascinating sight. His other hand grabbed a bottle of bubble bath that stood on the edge of the tub. He put just the right amount of it into the water. He seemed to be quite skilled at making bubble baths. Flo wasn’t sure how exactly this was a skill worth mentioning but since it was Rob’s she felt like it was special.   
“I…I will dry up a bit and make tea” he suddenly said and left the room. Flo sighed. Why was all of this so complicated? Why couldn’t a simple action just solve this entire situation? Or maybe it could? She watched the water slowly filling her tub, it was almost hypnotic, the bath foam started to appear and the air around her was warmed by the water vapor. Feeling was slowly returning to her fingers, she moved them slowly. When she took a look at them she was slightly shocked by the amount of scratches the thorns had left on them. She had been so completely irrational last night. She had probably just imagined the man from the club, no wonder, since she had been filled with fear anyway. She sighed, looked around the bathroom. Ten minutes passed, she could hear Rob in the kitchen, preparing the tea. Suddenly she had an idea. It was stupid and not suited to the situation and she shouldn’t do it, but Isa’s voice started speaking inside her head and basically forced her to. She slowly stood up and undressed. She carefully placed each piece of her wet clothing on the chair, laughing slightly as she folded her button-less blouse. Then she closed the tab, checking the water’s temperature with her fingertips. It was hot but just in the right way. He really knew how the make baths. She smiled when she slowly entered the tub, quickly being completely surrounded by warm water and foam. She sighed. He would return and bring her the tea. He would probably knock and wait for her permission to enter the room and she would give it to him, knowing that she was entirely naked. If he really had no intention to touch her again, she would probably know in a couple of minutes. 

Then it knocked on the door. She held her breath. For a second she considered jumping out of the water and quickly wrapping her bathrobe around her, pretending it had never crossed her mind to take a bath in front of him.   
“Can I come in?” His voice was soft and warm. She collected herself and said yes.   
The door opened slowly and there he was, carrying a cup of tea. He had chosen one of her beautiful vintage cups, covered in roses. He had changed also, now wearing a plain white shirt and black trousers, no socks. She smiled at him, not cheekily, rather like she was seeing a wonderful treasure in front of her. His eyes widened for a second when he realized where she was. But then he smiled back and kneeled down next to the tub.   
“Where do you want me to put this?” He asked, desperately looking into her eyes.   
“Just put it on the chair” she said. After he had done so, he wanted to turn around and leave the room.  
“Don’t” she whispered. “Stay here” Even though her voice had almost been painfully silent, he froze in his motion directly and came back to her.   
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, still concentrating on her eyes.   
“I…I just…” She was desperately searching for words, while she sank into his brown eyes helplessly. “I want to let you know that…no matter how you see it or how bad the circumstances were or….I don’t regret anything that has happened between us.” A mountain dropped from her shoulders after the words had left her mouth. Part of her wanted to take a deep breath and fully submerge into the tub, counting to 100 and then hope that he was gone. Another part just wanted him to come closer and closer, so that she could touch him, so that he could touch her. And this is what he did. He slowly sank to his knees, his face directly in front of hers. Yet he didn’t say anything, he just looked at her, at every single feature of her face. Then his left hand suddenly lifted and touched her cheeks, caressing them slowly, focusing on her scratches.   
“I want you” she said, not knowing where the courage to say so had come from. His mouth opened slowly, as if he wanted to tell her something but he remained silent. His eyes wandered away from her face, down to her neck, to her collarbones, right to the point where the water was covering the rest of her. “I want you” she repeated, hoping to force a reaction out of him. He looked up quickly, their glares crashing yet again. Her pulse was insanely high, warmth spread through all her body just from looking into his eyes more intensely than she had ever had. When he didn’t move yet again, she decided she couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards her. Their breaths were touching each others’ lips now. She couldn’t stop and pressed hers against his. Several shivers ran down her back, reaching her centre. Oh fuck. Just when she was about to move, about to touch his lips with her tongue, he pulled back. She led out a moan in disappointment, looking at him like a scared animal. She wanted him so badly, if he stood up and left her now, she wouldn’t know how to control her emotions. But he didn’t leave, he spoke:  
“Before we do this…This is not a little game, Flo. This is huge, you know where this would lead, this would change things and…I want to know if this is serious for you.”  
“Of…of course it is. Do I look like it isn’t?”  
“I am not talking about your desire but…answer me, if any other attractive guy was here, would you sleep with him as well? Is it about having sex? Because if so, as much as I’d like to give you that pleasure, we can’t do this.”  
“Do you honestly think I would choose you to …to…get laid? I had a thousand chances, we had a thousand chances, and believe me sometimes I was horny as fuck. But right now, I…I don’t know what happened or why it is that way but I…I want you, just you, no one else.” 

It was like a switch had been flicked. It was his turn to grab her, to pull her face towards him and kiss her almost forcefully. His tongue directly entered her mouth, not exploring it but taking it as if it belonged to him. She moaned loudly, her body moved closer to his, half out of the water. She touched his back, his neck, his chest. Their tongues danced together, slowly and then again faster, tenderly and almost violently, as if all their needs were put into this moment. He pulled away from her when he lacked oxygen, looking into her eyes deeply, breathing heavily. They both smiled when his hands started to slowly caress her neck, her chest and finally reached her breasts. She sucked in air as his thumbs started circling her nipples until they were rock hard. “Rob” she moaned when he replaced one hand with his mouth, sucking on her left nipple, while still massaging her right breast with his hand. She caressed his head, stroking his still wet hair, slowly wandering down to his neck, the top of his shirt. She could see the muscles of his broad back move underneath the thin fabric. Oh fucking hell. She pushed him away, knowing exactly what she wanted, what she needed. Grabbing his shirt forcefully, she pulled it over his head. When he sat there, his naked chest so close to hers, his muscles dancing underneath his skin as he was breathing, she wondered how she could’ve waited so many years to do this. He stood up, removed his trousers and his boxers, revealing what was already an impressive erection.   
Just when he was about to enter the tub, he looked down almost shyly and asked: “Are you save?”  
“Yes, the pill”, were the only words her brain was able to transport to her mouth. He nodded quickly and let his athletic body glide into the water across from her. She quickly shifted her position, wanted to make room for him but before she could settle, he pulled her onto his lap. She could feel his erection against her clit and belly and instinctively started rubbing herself against it. They continued looking into each others’ eyes, making clear that they knew exactly what they were doing and that they wanted it. They started kissing again, the tips of her breasts came in contact with his chest and she shivered, started to hump him almost desperately. His hands were all over her, caressing her back, massaging her ass in the most sensational manner, cupping her breasts. His lips moved away from her mouth to her neck, then sucking her earlobe and the skin directly underneath, moving forward to her jaw, back to her lips. Suddenly his left hand moved into the water between them, knowing exactly where it wanted to go. When his fingers touched her clit, she felt like parts of her brain exploded. “Fuck” She sighed as he let two fingers slide inside her, while his thumb continued to circle her clit. He started pumping in an out of her, his fingers doing the most sensational things to her. Her hips quickly trust into his fingers, creating an appealing rhythm that she wanted to give into until she came but then she stopped him.   
“No, no, not right now, you…inside…please” She grabbed his dick and slowly stroke it a couple of times. Their eyes met again, silently asking each other if they were both ready for this, if they should really do it. Yet they knew that at this point, an army would have to break into her house to stop them, it was done, it was too late, they were both at the edge of the cliff and they desperately wanted to jump. She slowly guided him to her entrance, feeling how fucking wet she was even inside the water when the tip of his penis touched her. God, oh God, was the only thing she could think as he entered her. He was big, but not too big, just right to fill her completely and slightly stretch her. It was perfect, fucking perfect. For a second they didn’t move, just smiled, looked at each other with nothing but love and lust. When she leaned over to kiss him, he started moving. Slowly at first so that they could get used to each other, find a rhythm. Yet this wasn’t a problem, their bodies understood each other instinctively. He started moving faster, she followed him. Every time he left and entered her again she felt like this was the fucking most amazing thing she had ever experienced. They moved faster and faster, touching, kissing, moaning. Water was splashing all over the floor as she rode him like it was the last thing she could ever do in her life. In the end they just clung onto each other, thrusting into each other like animals, without any control. Just when she thought that she would come, not being able to remember if she had ever felt so much pleasure, he touched her clit, messaging it in perfect unison with their rhythm and driving her to heights she didn’t know were possible. This was it, she lost it. Her entire body clenched when she came, not feeling anything besides her orgasm. It hit her so violently that she couldn’t even moan, she was just floating in a sphere that she had never been in. “Oh fuck” she whispered as she felt him coming inside her just seconds later. They both sank into each others’ arms, seemingly boneless, breathing like they had just about drowned.


	13. Such selfish prayers and I can't get enough

Her head lay on his chest. They were breathing in unison, staring into different directions, not quite sure when to face each other again. Rob stroked her back carefully, drawing circles on her soft pale skin, giving her slight goose bumps. The bathing water was slowly cooling but his body felt so firm and warm against hers that she didn’t dare to move. The idea of talking to him troubled her all the same, which is why it seemed so appealing to simply remain in this position, disconnected from the world and from their reality. 

“Flo?” half an hour had passed when he spoke the first word.  
“Hm?” She still didn’t look at him, was just waiting for the “this was a mistake” speech.   
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice was soft and slightly insecure. She finally lifted her head from his chest and saw him smile. Gently, almost unnoticeable but it seemed impossible that he would give her a speech about how wrong this was, looking at her like that.   
“I’m alright” she smiled back. “More than that, in fact, I…Are you alright?” Before she wanted to get into her feelings, she wanted to reassure herself that he would stay with her now. That he wouldn’t run away and leave her like an idiot, staring out of the window, waving goodbye at her best male friend, her dreams of the past two weeks and her self confidence. Her doubts were showing in her eyes like an endless accumulation of insecurity and he saw it.   
“Don’t worry. I’m more than alright too.” He said, grinning at her now. He carefully brushed a wet streak of red hair out of her face, his palm rested on her cheek. “This was fucking amazing” he suddenly said, laughing and looking up and down on her naked body, following the water drops that were slowly sliding down her skin. She felt how his eyes were almost sucking her in, felt how he was thinking about all the things he could still do to her and she drew in breath loudly. “I didn’t expect us to be quite that good at this together.”  
“I well…I didn’t either.” She laughed. In reality she had never thought about how good they’d be together, rather about how good it would feel to touch him.   
They both looked at each other, laughing. She expected to feel awkward but she didn’t. It was still them, bragging about their sexual talents, as you do…with your friend of the opposite sex after you fucked each other’s brains out.   
“Don’t you think we should leave the bath at some point?”  
“Yeah, I guess. Our skin could melt” She skeptically looked at her wrinkled fingers.  
“Or we could simply get cold, you know” He rubbed her arms in an attempt to warm her and he did, but in a slightly different way that didn’t have too much to do with temperature.   
“Do you have towels anywhere near?”   
“Oh, just…just over there, on the shelf.”   
“Well, well…so I have to get them I guess”

He slowly lifted her from his lap and got out of the tub, every inch of his skin being slowly revealed and she swallowed hard, still not quite sure she wasn’t dreaming. His big feet reached the bathroom floor and he left footprints everywhere, as if he left his marks. She looked up and down his body, his broad shoulders, his slim waist, his fucking muscular round ass and these toned legs, all shimmering from the water. She subconsciously reached out her hand, as if she could touch him at the other end of the room. Damn, how did she miss exploring every inch of his body, how did she just live around this insanely hot guy without fucking him senseless until now? That’s when she knew she needed more, as soon as possible. Her hunger for him had not been stilled, it was still screaming inside of her, told her to jump out of the tub and take him again, on the bathroom floor. His huge hands picked up two towels from her shelf and he turned around. His eyes met hers and it was evident he knew exactly how much she admired his physique. There was a burning self confidence in his eyes that pulled strings inside of her she didn’t even know existed. Gosh, this was either going to be heaven on earth or it would kill her. He slowly walked over to her and she got out of the water. He put the towels over the backrest of the chair next to the tub and took her hand, helping her to step onto the bathroom floor. They stood there, naked, facing each other, as he took one of the towels, gently wrapping it around her. He first dried her hair, which had gotten slightly wet during their fight in the water, then he rubbed her shoulders, messaging her. Their eyes were fixated on each other, as if they tried to reach each others’ minds. He smiled cheekily at her when he let the towel wander down to her belly and her hips, when it reached her bum. His movements were too hard for simply trying to dry her. She could feel his strong hands underneath the towel, grabbing her butt cheeks. Instead of drawing her closer to him, which is what she was longing for, he suddenly sank down onto his knees, looking up at her, smiling. His lips came in contact with her belly, circling around her belly button, slowly making his way further down, the towel leaving her butt and drying her left leg, while he caressed her belly with his tongue. Away was the fear that he would not let her fulfill her need to further experience him. She closed her eyes and sighed. His tongue was really talented. The towel wandered behind her to her other leg. Once it was dry, she could hear the towel dropping to the floor. She gasped in disappointment because his mouth had left her belly. Instead his hands wandered to her hips, pulling her closer. She was about to open her eyes when his tongue came in touch with her clit. She let out half a scream of surprise, half a moan. Fuck, she hadn’t expected that. She could hear him laugh in a self satisfied way, air tickling her clit. His hands parted her legs and she willingly opened them up, as his tongue explored her further, gliding over her entrance. She knew her knees would weaken soon, in an attempt to balance herself she looked around, sank back slightly, so that she could brace herself at the edge of the tub. By doing this she leaned into him even further, his hands grabbing her hips, pulling her as close as he could. His tongue entered her, long, hard strokes made her walls clench. She could hear him swallow her wetness. Her moans were a mix between ecstasy and slight disbelief regarding what he was just doing to her. God, he was so fucking amazing at it. Parts of her wished she had never found out, parts of her thanked whatever power made humans able to do this. His tongue wandered back forward and he began sucking her hard in an almost violent rhythm. She let out noises that she couldn’t recognize, her head falling back, her free hand grabbing his head, his hair, pressing him against herself. His tongue was doing perfect things to her, sliding in just the right places, adding just the right pressure. When she started to pull his hair he slightly pushed her back, grabbed her in a way so that she was just about sitting on his arms. He opened her legs so wide that she knew she wouldn’t be able to stand anymore without his help. Together with his wiggling tongue he had taken control of her to a point she would normally not allow anyone but she completely let herself go. He continued sucking her, licking her and she started thrusting back and forth, moving her hips in the rhythm of his tongue, letting out endless gaps. “Oh fuck, Rob” she suddenly let out breathless. He moaned into her just at the same time, sending vibrations through her that almost made her go crazy. “Rob, yes…oh damn….fuck…” She couldn’t control herself anymore, could only scream senseless things in between her moans as he guided her to a higher place of ecstasy. His big hands started grabbing her tighter, pulling her towards him so that she was stuck, couldn’t thrust anymore, could only let him do phenomenal things to her. It felt like the most sensational way of torture. He moaned again, making her walls clench around nothing. His teeth started to slightly tease her clit, followed again by his tongue gliding back to her entrance and then again to her clit, back and forth, back and forth. The only thing she was capable of was moaning, gasping and screaming and she knew she was close. She didn’t want this to end, she wanted him to do this to her…for her forever. But she couldn’t stop the reactions of her body that was craving for release so badly she almost held her breath. “Fuck, don’t stop, Rob…” Her head bent forward again, she opened her eyes, saw his head between her legs. He looked up at her, their eyes met and the rhythm of his tongue slowed down. The expression in his eyes was wonderfully soft, making her aware that it gave him immense pleasure to make her feel this way. Meanwhile his tongue circled slowly around her clit, his arms let go of her slightly, so that she could thrust towards him again. Her free hand stroked the back of his head and she smiled while he drove her over the edge. The orgasm hit her like a long wave, traveling up and down her body longer than she was used to. “Wow, oh wow…” was all she could say as his mouth left her and he slowly pulled her down into his arms. As they were face to face she kissed him softly, tasting herself in his mouth, stunned at the fact that it was him…Rob, that had given her what was possible the greatest cunnilingus imaginable. Their heads were resting on each others’ shoulders, both smiling and holding the other. 

“Fuck, Rob…I…” she whispered, still out of breath.   
He laughed into her shoulder.   
“Please, don’t be so speechless, or I will get big headed”   
“Well” She pulled back from his shoulder to look at him. “Let’s just say I’m impressed. Not that that means anything, because there might be some guy in China who’s better at this. But since I’m not in China…”  
“You’re satisfied with what you’ve got?” He poked her teasingly, playfully rolling his eyes.   
“Very, very satisfied” She leaned closer, her forehead was touching his. They were having a staring contest, trying to figure out what the other one was thinking, when Flo’s eyes wandered downwards, discovering a little someone staring at her quite prominently, begging for attention.   
“Isn’t this kinda unfair?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Oh, come on, I can’t leave you with this kind of boner after what you’ve done for me.”  
“Oh, you can’t? So you pity me, Welch?”  
“Yes, quite a lot, cause your little friend seems to be in real need of help.” 

She felt the sudden need to swallow his dick, entirely and suck him until he screamed underneath her. She usually wasn’t crazy for giving blowjobs, but this time it felt entirely different. She had had that feeling before, caring for her partner so much that she wanted to give everything back to him that he gave to her and more. It wasn’t something she did for her own pleasure, something that would turn her on. It was something she wanted to do just for him. She was surprised she felt this way with him so fast but it seemed natural, how it should be. So when he whispered for help she moved slightly away from him, so that she could lower her head easily. At first her tongue gently licked his tip, while her right hand wandered up and down his length. Just the contact made him gasp. His penis felt wonderfully soft and warm inside her hands and against her tongue and lips. She looked up on him, smiled cheekily. He smiled back, slightly shaking his head. Not in disapprovement but rather making her aware that he felt the same mixture of complete sensation and disbelief that was occupying her mind. She slowly opened her mouth, let his tip glide between her parted lips. Another gasp left his mouth and her tongue circled around his glens. She began sucking him, slowly, while her hand was still moving up and down, gripping him tightly. Her other hand started wandering around, stroking his strong thighs, touching his belly, the abs that were shimmering underneath his skin and that clenched under her touch. Their eye contact never broke and she took such joy in seeing his face, his glowing eyes, his almost desperate smile. She decided to look away when she tried to take him. It wasn’t an easy task, and at first she had to stop shortly before the end, went up again as he moaned. She could feel him lean back, his hips began thrusting forward and his penis was pushing into her mouth again almost without her control. She stopped him again shortly before he reached her throat and let him glide out again, only to take him again. Her tongue was continuously teasing him, she decided to use her teeth as well. “Flo, hell…your fucking mouth…oh…” She laughed, air was vibrating along his penis as she did so, and he moaned again. Now she took him fully, had to concentrate much not to gulp. Normally she was slightly uneasy at this point, but not with him. She started sucking and jerking him, rhythmically, stopped thinking about what she was doing. Their eyes met from time to time and she imagined that their thoughts and feelings were completely united as were their movements. His hips started thrusting uncontrollably now and he pushed inside her mouth a bit too hard, so that she had to choke. He automatically slowed down. “Sorry” he said softly, and she was completely confused. Didn’t he like that he was slightly too big for her mouth? His hips sank to the floor and his hand wandered to her head, playing with her hair. “Flo, this is fucking amazing, just do it…how you…how you think is right” He said, gasping for air. She smiled again, suddenly feeling warm and comfortable. She felt her body reacting to the way he was completely letting her take control. While she was working on him, her hips started circling slowly. Oh God, she wanted him again. But she had to finish this, make him feel like he made her feel. 

“Flo…Flo…stop” he suddenly said. Completely surprised she let go of him. “I want you…I mean all of you, again…” He sat up, took her hands into his. “It was so fucking great, seriously…okay?”  
“I…I’m not going to complain. But…” She looked around herself and her body told her the bathroom floor wasn’t the most comfortable place. “Can we go to my bedroom?”   
“Sure…but fast…” He said, helping her to get up and they both ran out of the bathroom through her living room and finally let themselves fall onto her bed. It was completely chaotic, pillows everywhere, her blanket was all over the place but they didn’t even notice. He quickly position himself above her, both were still smiling, their eyes were glowing in the anticipation of great sex.   
“Damn, Flo, we should’ve tried this earlier.”  
“Defenetly” She said, pulling him in for a fast, passionate kiss. He broke the kiss after a few seconds, looking deeply into her eyes, then up and down her body. Then he grinned like a boy that had first discovered the miracles of a female body.   
“I’m going to fuck you so that you don’t remember your name anymore, alright?”  
“As long as I don’t forget yours” She laughed and stuck her tongue out and he poked her slightly.   
“Oh you…” He hissed, smiling. His gaze lowered, went away from her, so that he could enter her. This time he pushed even deeper into her and as her walls started to widen, she felt warmth running through her in a way that had nothing to do with sexual desire but with a way deeper feeling, emotion. Damn. He began moving slowly and she moved underneath him in unison. She was again amazed at how fast they could find a rhythm, as if they were speaking silent words, giving each other soundless orders on what to do. As his movements speeded up, she couldn’t help herself but wrap her legs around him, pulling him as close to her as she could.   
“Damn…your legs are freakin weapons” he laughed, thrusting into her harder and she felt a slight pain, ignoring it because it was only increasing her pleasure.   
“Can you blame me for using them?” She answered, moving her hips almost violently, so that he could enter her even deeper.   
“No…fuck no, you know exactly what you’re doing, you….oh…fuck…” She started running her fingers up and down his back, her nails slightly scratching him, grinning at him cheekily. He leaned forward to kiss her and their tongues met outside of their mouths, already beginning their game.   
They were soon at a point beyond speaking or even thinking. Their entire universe focused on their movements, their feelings. He pulled her closer several times, basically grabbing her, holding her, while she had wrapped herself entirely around him. If it had been possible, they would’ve united completely, their bodies becoming one. Flo knew the end would come soon, they were too aroused to last long. Just when she thought about trying to slow them down to enjoy this longer she felt her walls clench. Shit. It was too late. She didn’t even have to touch herself or wait for him to do so, she came violently as he thrust into her, her legs almost crushing him. She let out an animal like scream as he continued entering and leaving her until he came. They both rocked back and forth for a while until the waves of their orgasms had disappeared. This time they looked at each other directly, laying there still. He stroked her cheek with one finger of his left hand, leaving a tickling sensation on her skin. She took his face into her hands and placed several light kisses on his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, until their lips met in a soft, almost non-existent way. They smiled at each other when they parted and he slowly glided out of her. They lay next to each other, silent. Flo admired every inch of his body, tried to record it inside her brain as if she were a video camera. At this moment it seemed to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She tried to feel awkward about the situation, tried to question what they had done but it didn’t work. The entire negative part of her mind seemed to be locked up. All she could feel was happiness, release, relief and…she didn’t want to voice it, even inside her head, but it was love. Not the love of a deep rooted friendship she had felt for him before…no, it was the kind of love that made her sure she wanted to be with him. Not just in this moment, but for a long time. Just when her mind wanted to ask her how this should work out, he spoke.   
“That was wonderful” he said, and didn’t seem at all embarrassed to voice his feelings.   
She smiled broadly, her mouth was as open as it could be, her eyes glowing.   
“I know” she answered dreamily and didn’t even care she came off like a fourteen year old.   
“But we should….go to sleep…I mean it’s six am.” He looked at the watch, seemed almost shy to suggest sleep at this point. Yet they were both too tired to move.   
Suddenly he was reasonable one again and she was the dreamer that wanted to stare at him for the next 20 days, not leave her house or even this bed.   
“Mairead said she’d call us in the morning and we should get some sleep, so that we are prepared” He winked.   
“I know…I know…” was all she could say. Her smile couldn’t leave her face as he was speaking and she knew she was being ridiculous but she couldn’t control it. If he wanted to sleep, fine, she would try to sleep. And dream of him, hopefully. And if not she would stay awake until he woke up again, studying his body, writing songs about every inch of it inside her head. That sounded like a great idea.


	14. The morning after

When Rob woke up, he found her sitting at the foot of her bed, writing into a small notebook. An oversized band shirt was covering her body, something he usually only saw her wearing when she was going for a jog. Her long, red hair was all over the place, slightly curly. From time to time she stroked a streak of her hair behind her ear, even though it would soon get lose again. Another streak tickled her and she made the most adorable movement with her nose, looking like a little bunny. He had no idea what she was writing but she was completely submerged in it, not noticing that he was awake. He let out a sigh without being aware but it let her notice him and she looked up. 

“Oh, hey” she said, smiling at him shyly but broadly. The sun coming through the curtains made her hair look almost golden and her skin was glowing like porcelain.   
“Hey” he answered, smiling back. He was at loss for words, to him it seemed like she was coming right out of a dream. He had never found her more beautiful than at this very moment. She quickly scribbled something else down, still half looking at him.   
“What are you writing?” he asked, his voice returning.   
“Nothing” she quickly said. “It’s just notes, it doesn’t make any sense” Her voice sounded quite rough and was half disappearing at the end of the sentence.   
“Oh, I bet it makes perfect sense, you just don’t wanna show me? Is it a song?”  
Her eyes became huge and she quickly pressed the notebook against her chest, hiding the words from him.   
“Not…yet” she whispered. “Because you know how my songs are…some parts here, some bits there…lots of doodles and all…a bit of confusion thrown over it…” she spoke really fast but her voice broke all the time.  
“You okay? Your voice…”  
“Oh yeah…I…I think I’m having a cold.” She said, touching her throat and rubbing it a bit. She laughed. “No wonder, right?”  
“Not really. But you should then…not sit around like this, without a blanket, in just…just a T-shirt.” He emphasized the just, almost put it in a question mark. Did she wear anything underneath the T-shirt? His hands almost wanted to move without his brain’s permission. The memories how I felt like touching her were incredibly fresh and real. She had wonderfully soft, warm skin. He grabbed her blanket, crawled over to her and softly put it around her, hugging her almost by accident but not letting go. He carefully placed his head on her shoulder, inhaling her scent. She took in a deep breath at the close contact and leaned back against his chest slowly.   
“Is the song about…anything that happened last night?” he asked silently, searching for her hands underneath the blanket, holding them as they held the notebook.   
“It might be” she said, tried to sound mysterious but in fact her cheeks turned a slight red color.   
“I hope it’ll be a bit like bedroom hymns” he exclaimed, smiling cheekily even though she didn’t see him as she looked around the room seemingly without a real focus. Suddenly she turned around and faced him.   
“You’ll see once you recognize it…when I ask you to play a real guitar over my amateurish jingle jangle.”  
“You mean once I ruin your creative idea of how a guitar sounds like with my craft?”   
Flo laughed when their fingers were interlocking underneath the blanket, over the notebook. Rob felt as if they were covering her heart, both in a physical and psychological sense. Maybe she had written down her thoughts about them, in majestic lyrics that involved demons and ghouls and the horsemen of the apocalypse. Suddenly he started wondering how many happy songs she had ever written. He was sure there was at least one…or two. The idea that she usually wrote songs about sad things made him feel uncomfortable, as if he had confused her mind and forced her to write some fucked up song about them.   
“And why are you so sure it’s about you?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and leaning a bit away from him.   
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I think what we did yesterday…or rather today…might go through your head quite a bit. And also because if you look at my naked body covered in a blanket…what else could you write about, hm?”  
“I don’t know, maybe the folds of the blanket? I like how blankets fold.”  
“You would write a song about folding blankets instead of me? Wow.”  
“I once thought about writing a song about a giraffe.” She said randomly but sounding like it made perfect sense to connect him and folding blankets with giraffes.   
“And that’s like writing a song about me?” he asked, frowning.   
“Kind of. You’re both tall.” Again she sounded like a physicist explaining a law of nature.   
“So if you…let’s say wrote a song about a giraffe and one about me, which one would be more passionate?” he tried to approach it differently because otherwise she might’ve come up with 100 reasons why he was indeed a giraffe and why she liked this about him or not.   
She pretended to think really hard about that and he was about to call her mean but then she leaned closer to him, almost touching his forehead with hers.   
“You’re the most wonderful giraffe I’ll ever meet. And the hottest.” She grinned at him as if she had just given him the biggest compliment and he couldn’t help but feel proud of being a wonderful giraffe.   
“Shouldn’t we like…eat breakfast or so? I feel like I haven’t eaten in years. And I haven’t done as much sport as this morning in aaaages!” She almost seemed proud.   
“Judging by what I saw, this is probably the sport your best at, right?”  
“When you’re talking about genuinely good…and not pretending to be…yeah…maybe…but there’s also jumping around and doing handstands…and climbing trees!” She nodded enthusiastically and looked like a puppy that was very proud of having learned how to stay in one place for ten seconds. He wanted to kiss her and instead of fighting against it, like he had just days ago, he simply did. It was a short moment, their lips touched for two or three seconds, but it felt incredibly sweet. He didn’t want to think of himself as a guy who shared cute, short smooches with his girlfriend but he could smooch her for two hours. His girlfriend, oh fuck, it was Flo. And they had simply fucked each other twice, why the hell not? It wasn’t like they were the first friends fucking around a bit. If only he could keep telling himself that. With any other of his female friends it would’ve been a simple fuck. Not with her though, with her nothing ever was simple. Not to mention everything was emotional and that wasn’t just because she was a very emotional person but because she evoke and she had always evoked very intense feelings in him, regardless of what nature. Part of him wanted to run away when he looked into her eyes when their lips parted. They were glowing and her smile was so bright and sweet and almost innocent. For the first time he thought that she could be in love with him and it freaked him out. Flo fell in love and falling was meant in a literal sense. When she was in love, it was almost like a disease. Any kind of love she gave to anyone was intense, so he had seen quite a few parts of her intense love towards him. Yet it had been a different kind of love. If she was IN love with him, it would be the really crazy kind of love that she sang about. But what exactly made him so sure that she had not felt this kind of love for him? 

“I…I’ll make coffee.” She exclaimed in her husky voice, slipped out of his hug and began jumping towards the kitchen, the notebook still in her hands. She turned around once more, their eyes met since he had followed every single one of her movements intensely. Her lightening blub smile returned and he couldn’t help but give a similar one back to her. When she finally left for the kitchen, still jumping slightly and humming a tune, he kept wondering what she was thinking. She seemed really happy, but why exactly? What did she think was going on between them now? He had no fucking clue what he was even thinking about that. 

*

Flo quickly placed the notebook behind of several books in her living room shelf. Thank god he had not read any of it. She didn’t want him to know how a tornado of crazy thoughts was having a dancing competition inside her head. Of course he would’ve probably not understood half of what she had written down. It were notes in all kinds of directions, upside down and in circles, paired with doodles that were a mix of flowers and hearts and a severed head that represented the logical side of her that was seemingly dead.   
Part of her told her she should call him into the kitchen and have a serious conversation with him about where this was going. The other part told her that she herself had no clue and that she actually didn’t even want to have a clue. So instead of coming up with logical arguments (not her biggest talent anyway) she started humming one melody after the other while she prepared breakfast. She was about to check her juggling skills with a few oranges when he came into the kitchen in a white shirt and boxers. 

“Oh, another one of your sport talents?”   
She dropped every single one of the oranges at the sight of him, desperately trying to catch them, looking like a complete dork  
“I guess not” He commented and sank to his knees, helping her to pick the oranges up. It didn’t escape her that his hand went to reach for one of them way too late, so that it was sure he would touch her. She didn’t fake an awkward “oops, we touched moment” but enjoyed it when his hand stroked the back of hers.   
“That was just the demo effect. I am actually half good at this.”   
“I am really good. I could teach you some tricks.”  
“You’ll have to. At some point my jumping and twirling won’t be enough for the audience anymore.”  
“Don’t forget you also occasionally sing.”  
“Well, yeah, forgot about that…arguably my biggest talent besides screaming.”  
“Oh yeah…I noticed that.” He winked and she turned slightly red. They stood up slowly, still holding the same orange.   
“I wanna…juice, you know? Like fresh…juice…from…fruits” Not only did her voice still sound like she had screamed for 10 hours through (actually that’s not what it sounded like since she had occasionally done that and it hadn’t really affected her) but now her brain also had a hiccup.   
“Sounds good to me” he said, letting go of the orange, smiling at her in a slightly dirty manner. 

They would’ve smiled at each other like complete fools for minutes if her phone had not rung. At first she was confused because she only remembered it dying last night when she had talked to Isa. Rob grinned at her though. “I charged it. I knew you’d forget.” She let out a little laugh and hit her forehead with her palm, letting out a slight “duh, thanks”   
When she walked towards the phone she knew exactly who it was before she could catch even a glimpse of the display.   
“Morning Mairead, slept well?” she said in a sing song voice.   
“You tell me, sweetheart…you sound like you entered a screaming contest after we left.”  
Flo swallowed hard and noticed that her throat was more than a little soar.   
“No…no…not a contest, no.” she managed to say, wondering how loud she had actually been. Of course she was aware that her vocal problems rather resulted from her little runaway moment than from what she had done afterwards.   
“Well, I hope you’re okay? How’s your head?”  
“My head? Oh…I almost forgot. It’s fine, I guess.”  
“Awesome. Is Rob there? I couldn’t reach him.” Flo glared at him from the side. He had plugged in her phone but forgot to turn his own on again? That was actually pretty sweet.   
“Sure, we were just eating breakfast.”   
“Should’ve expected that. Chris and I just finished lunch.”  
“You square early birds, you!”  
“Well, life isn’t rock’ n’ roll forever. We leave the untraditional lifestyle for Bobby and you.” Flo suddenly saw herself and Rob forever dancing in flowery clothes (well, rather her), having sex without telling anyone, making music until death, never settling down. Then she thought about living in a big, old country house with him, with two or three goofy children who did goofy things with their parents all day, all of them dancing and twirling through nature while Rob played an old acoustic guitar that he had already used back when they had started out with the band.   
“We are actually really boring too!” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing that it felt like she was talking about them as an item opposed to Mairead and Chris. It felt so weird but so…she wanted this feeling to stay.   
“Of course, you went to bed directly after we left, sleeping like puppies. That doesn’t change though that you have a little trouble in your hands, which is why I need to speak to Rob.”  
“Sure” She handed the phone to him like a fellow student who informed her friend that the teacher wanted to speak to them alone.   
He sighed, smiled and took it. While he spoke to Mairead she continued making breakfast. She desperately tried not to spill half of the orange juice onto the floor or drop anything. It was working incredibly well and she was proud of herself. She hadn’t even hit herself today. Sure, it was only…she checked out the clock on the wall…half past 12 but literally half of the day was already over.   
When Rob ended the call, she had placed everything in front of them, just took the two cups of coffee from the counter and placed them across from each other on the table.   
“So?” she asked, slightly worried.   
“The guy wants to have a conversation with us together with his lawyer, so that we settle this outside of court.”  
“Oh…that’s good, right?”  
“Yeah, I assume. But Mairead is still talking to the club’s manager, he is pretty pissed about us.”  
“I bet she’ll fix that too. She’s Mairead.” Flo sounded like she would’ve sounded years ago, at the beginning of her career when she would leave chaos behind and someone would fix it, like a little army of elves was following her around. She knew better now, but she didn’t want to face her remorse at the moment. She was well aware there were still quite a few steps for her to take until she could be called a sensible person. 

“I only hope we won’t get barred. Love that club!” Rob exclaimed, sighing.  
“Oh crap, totally not. Isa wasn’t there.”  
“What?”  
“Oh…well, I told her about it and she was going on and on about how she would’ve thrown around drinks and destroyed everything.” Flo laughed. Isa and Flo had obviously spent a couple of crazy, wild nights together, they had never truly destroyed anything besides dresses, nails and phones though. Destroying a hotel room with instruments was still a thing on her list of stuff a rock star absolutely had to do that she couldn’t cross out. Burning your hotel room with a scented candle didn’t count.   
“Sure, the little hobbit…she would’ve kicked that guy’s balls with a high kick and then she would’ve been preoccupied being your nurse.”  
“You were a good nurse too.” She stroked his hand from across the table and he looked down, slightly embarrassed. After a second she said “It would be kinda cool though. Being barred.”   
“I’m sure it would look perfect on our CV.”  
“We are rock stars, of course it would.”  
“Maybe we should go back again with the entire band and burn down the place. We’d only have to buy some valium for Mairead, so that she doesn’t have a heart attack.”  
“I’d take lots of lovely stuff though. I’d destroy furniture with vintage tennis bats and throw truckloads of glitter into the fire, while wearing some ripped renaissance gown and singing insane things that we come up with beforehand.”  
“Can’t wait” 

They ended up having a couple of crazy conversations for about two hours, completely forgetting that a dimension called time existed. Just after they had finished the laws of an imaginary state they had created where it was part of A-levels to destroy clubs, Rob became somewhat serious.   
“I think I should call my landlord, trying to find out how my place looks like.”  
“Oh…yeah…you should” Flo said silently. It was silly of her that she didn’t like the idea of him even taking a look at his place. It reminded her that his stay was only limited. Not to mention he would spend a great deal of time in the US soon, since he was living there now. She hadn’t really been aware of the fact that he had moved last year, since they had been on tour constantly. It was different now that an ocean was dividing them. Of course Isa had bought a house in Los Angeles as well and Flo remembered reading their tweets about meeting up and spending time together and she had felt ridiculously left out. It was silly. She had so many friends in London and her family was here and it was her home and she wanted to stay here. Yet she almost felt like the two of them had left her in some way. At first she thought less time with Isa would be the huge problem, the issue to freak out over. Partly it was. Now though the idea of Rob just leaving her damn house and move back into his apartment pissed her off. What would she do if he was in the States…and Isa wouldn’t be there either?   
“Are you alright?”   
“Er…yes, of course. Call the person.” She said quickly, not looking at him. She was so fucking bad at faking emotions sometimes.   
“Oookay…if you say so” He sounded skeptical but he typed in the number nevertheless…into her phone. At first she felt slightly paranoid about that but then she realized that Rob’s landlord probably had no clue what her mobile number was and maybe he had no clue who she was either and thus wouldn’t give a shit.   
“What? You are joking?” He said some seconds later, looking totally shocked. “Are they allowed to do that? Seriously? But…Okay, I’ll be right there” Rob hung up, staring at the phone as if it had played a trick on him.   
“Thank God I called. I gotta go!” He said and stood up fast.   
“W-what’s wrong?” He couldn’t leave! Not now, not without any preparation!  
“They…they are taking out my freakin floor to look for this fucking snake!”  
“Oh…that…that’s…” She wanted to express her anger about it as well, somehow make him feel understood but all she could do was stutter and she started coughing as well.   
He was already in the guest room, putting on clothes. Her logical brain part switched on again and told her there was no way he would return to his apartment with the snake still in there and no floor, but she didn’t even want him to take a step out of the house without her. What the hell was going on with her? She normally wasn’t that damn clingy.   
When he stood opposite her, fully clothed, he shrugged.   
“I’m gonna quickly brush my teeth. I think you should put on something else again. Otherwise people will think you’ve lost your shit.”  
“Me…”  
“Yeah, are you coming with me or not?”  
“Oh…oh, sure! Of course I am!” She quickly jumped up, punching herself mentally once again. He didn’t want to go alone, why the hell should he? She pranced upstairs to fetch some clothes. Halfway through her wardrobe she stepped at the edge of the stairs and yelled: “What makes you think that me putting on my day to day clothes will NOT make them think I’ve lost my shit?”


	15. A mysterious supporter

She had finally settled for one of her patterned blouses, jeans, vintage slippers and the hat she was unable to leave the house without recently. For her style she looked really low key, since she didn’t feel like forcing Rob’s entire street to turn their heads when she walked by. Why was she making a fuss about it anyway? She had been there before and had not thought one second about it. Right now though, as they were leaving her house together, walking side by side, it felt like every atom was checking them out, nodding knowingly. They probably knew more than she did, since she wasn’t sure what exactly there was to know, despite the obvious sex thing…  
They had walked for a bit, enjoying the sun, chatting about random things. Their arms were linked in a friendly manner, nothing obvious and she wasn’t sure if this gesture was a change in behavior or not. She only knew that she enjoyed it, looking up at him with a beaming smile again and again. She would’ve probably walked to a bus station, being the oblivious person she was, forgetting who they were. He decided to stop a cab instead.   
She leaned closely into him when they sat down, since she was shuddering a bit, defenetly knowing that she was getting sick. He wrapped his arm around her and robbed her gently. 

When they arrived in his street and exited the cab, Rob walked considerably faster than her. There was no cute talk anymore or linked arms, which she should’ve expected. He was here to sort something out after all and the last thing they needed was a curious person spotting them and giving them suspicious looks.   
It was clear from afar that his building was sealed. Two light trucks were the only cars parking there. Right next to the entrance a dark haired, slightly chubby man around 50 was waiting for them.   
“Mr. Ackroyd! I wish you had arrived earlier!” He was waving at Rob quite hysterically.  
Rob took big steps and she almost had to run to follow him.   
“Did they already take it out?” Rob asked, suddenly turning pale.   
“I tried to stop them, but they said it’s beyond your or my control! I am so sorry, but they wouldn’t listen to me!” Rob’s landlord pointed at the door and let Rob pass. He nodded towards Flo with a slight smile as she followed Rob inside. She was quite relieved that the man didn’t seem to mind her presence nor did he seem to care. While the hallway still looked pretty much how Flo remembered it, the doors to the apartments rather seemed like entrances to a quarantine zone. There was thick white foil covering them and as they arrived at Rob’s apartment she could see men in protective suits stomping around in a room, which didn’t look like his apartment at all, rather like a space station. Rob’s jaw dropped as he pointed at the scenery.   
“That’s…my apartment?” He asked silently, knowing the answer.   
“Unfortunately this is how it looks. This is how most of them look. Don’t turn so pale young man, I should faint here” Rob’s landlord said in a high voice and sighed.   
“How long is this going to take?”  
“Well, a few more days and they’ll have permission to gas everything, meaning to kill the little bastard.”  
“I feel kind of sorry for the snake. I mean it was just trying to discover the free world.” Flo suddenly said, not even noticing she was speaking instead of thinking.   
Both men turned towards her and raised an eyebrow. She felt caught and opened her mouth for a further explanation but then Rob’s landlord interrupted her.   
“How unfriendly of me, I haven’t even introduced myself to you, Miss…I’m sorry, I always forget your last name…” The man turned slightly red and Flo quickly jumped in.   
“No problem, you can call me Florence.”  
“Alright, Florence, I’m Joseph Kingsley, landlord, always trying to pay attention to your friend over here, so that his music doesn’t blow my windows.”   
“Oh, don’t try to win her with that, be glad she isn’t here so often, if she were and started singing, your windows would burst.”  
“Not now though” Flo coughed and rubbed her neck.   
“Oh he’s told me a million times about your amazing voice, I bet it is still ten times better than mine with a cold. Actually I’m quite amazed to finally meet you after all the stories.”  
“Stories? Only nice ones, I hope.”  
“Oh, only the nicest. He thinks very highly of you, but I guess you know that. Of course people are quite curious about you sometimes, especially the younger people around here. But whenever they ask him about you, he’s always ready to compliment you. In fact, my wife is quite charmed by his words about you. She loves to ask him what you are up to, even though she has no idea who you are. She’s more into classical music.” Flo almost stopped breathing during Mr. Kingsley’s speech and Rob gave her wide eyed looks as if to inform her that his landlord had lost his mind.   
“That’s great to know” Flo said, smiling at Rob. On the one hand she wanted to jump towards him and kiss him, knowing that he had given her such a good image around here. On the other hand she didn’t want him to be embarrassed and he clearly seemed to be. Not to mention she considered a lip lock with her quite dangerous at the moment, since her voice was disappearing more and more.   
“So…who is going to pay for this?” Rob suddenly changed the topic and looked away from her, which made one part of her freeze.   
“Oh…this is quite unclear at the moment. There’s the possibility that the boy’s parents will be held to account but if what they say is true, it might be a little more complicated.”  
“Complicated how?”  
“Well, the boy claims someone paid him to release the snake.”  
“What?” Flo and Rob spoke at the same time. While Rob’s face was filled with anger, Flo was secretly delighted. She was already packing her gift basket for whoever had done this. Then she remembered it could only be a teenager’s lie who didn’t want to get into trouble.   
“But his story sounds quite…unbelievable. So I don’t think he will get away with it.”  
“What did he say?” Flo asked, a little overexcited and Rob gave her a side glance, raising both eyebrows.   
“Apparently it was a witch.”   
Rob laughed deprecatingly. “If he had just lost the thing by accident…I would almost be amused, but this? This is just ridiculous! My stories as a boy were ten times better.”  
Flo smiled at him, silently asking him which of these stories she hadn’t heard but her curiosity took the better of her and she questioned the landlord further.   
“What made him think it was a witch?”  
“You don’t believe this, do you?” Rob looked at her as if she had just declared that she believed in fairies and goblins, which she actually couldn’t always claim she didn’t, she confessed to herself. Instead of answering his question, she raised a hand in his direction, making clear he should shut up. Then she encouraged the landlord to speak.   
“It’s really silly but apparently a short old woman approached him hours before he released the snake. She was saying all kinds of weird things, called herself the junk Lady. Apparently she wanted to keep someone in a dream and he needed to help her. She gave him 200 pounds.”  
Flo laughed out loud, while Rob seemed very bemused, making a throw away gesture with his hand, making them aware he didn’t believe a thing.  
“That’s hysterical! Honestly, if someone had given me 200 dressed as the Junk Lady, I probably wouldn’t necessary have done it, but…I get why he…” A cough interrupted her speech and gave Rob room to react.   
“Flo, please, this is ridiculous.”  
“And that’s probably why it is true.” She said, recovering from her coughing.   
“Excuse me, I can’t really follow?” Mr. Kingsley looked from Flo to Rob and back, seemingly lost.   
“The Junk Lady is a character from a kid’s movie.” Rob stated matter-of-factly and laughed.   
“Oh, alright and that makes it more believable how?” The landlord looked at Florence, hoping she might come up with the perfect explanation.   
“Well, you know…someone could’ve dressed up as the Junk Lady and done that.”  
“But why?” Rob stepped between her and his landlord and looked at her closely. “Just to repeat what you are saying…some person dressed up as a character from Labyrinth and gave a teenager 200 freaking pounds to release a poisonous snake? This would be sick.”  
“But maybe this person had a specific reason.”  
“What reason? Killing me?”  
“Oh God no! Maybe she just wanted the building to be empty.”  
“What for?” His nose was almost touching hers at this point and he smiled at her cheekily, as if this were some sort of fun duel.   
“To perform a ritual?” She laughed and enjoyed his eye roll after the words had left her mouth.   
“This sounds like something you’d do.” He said, then stepped back a little, realizing that he had basically accused her of all this.   
“I can calm you down, Bobbie. I don’t have anything to do with this I swear!” she said, the last words coming out more loudly than she had intended, since she had realized mid sentence that she would’ve been slightly proud of herself if she had been responsible for the situation that had caused him to stay at her place for the past couple of days.   
“Why am I suddenly so relieved?” Rob nudged her and looked into her eyes, smiling.   
A few moments later he could hear someone hemming. “Mr. Ackroyd, Ms…Florence, I am sorry but I have some more things to clear with the pest controller. I hope you feel a little calmer knowing that you will not have to pay for this mess.”   
Rob turned around so fast he almost stumbled. “Oh…oh yes, of course, Mr. Kingsley.”  
“I hope to see you back as soon as this is over.”  
“Well, this might not happen. Thinking about how this place looks like, I’ll probably go back to LA sooner. Hope I can find someone who can fix this place while I’m overseas.”  
“I could help organizing that, of course.”

With these words they said goodbye. Mr. Kingsley also wished her a quick recovery from the cold. Flo expected Rob to call a cab again but instead he took her hand as they had walked around the corner. She was a little shocked and her hand tensed up for a moment. This definitively wasn’t a normal way for them to walk around town. Not to mention they were in the centre of London and quite a few people walked past them. She was still constantly clearing her throat and smiled when Rob handed her a cough drop he had taken from his pocket.   
“Here” he unpacked the drop and put it into her mouth. Thankfully it wasn’t one of these insane ones that basically melted your tongue. It tasted like honey. “Mhhhm” she murmured and he smiled at her.  
“It’s funny, right? The reason why we would end up in bed together would be a crazy person claiming to be a fantasy creature.” He suddenly whispered, leaning down, his breath caressing her cheek. “But I think it fits perfectly.” Their eyes met and his hand tightened around hers. A million feelings were rushing through her and she didn’t know how to sort them or to even handle them. She couldn’t answer, only heard her insanely loud heartbeat. He laughed at her speechlessness. 

“I…I…wanna run” she suddenly screamed. That was it. She wanted to jump and run and go crazy. So she just did, still holding his hand tightly. And they ran together through the masses of people, constantly looking at each other, laughing, half falling down, half crashing against people. It was an amazingly light and free feeling, as if they were flying. She completely forgot where they were and stopped wondering whether someone would recognize her. She was just happy, so happy. Suddenly he grabbed her waist and half carried her around a corner. They were in a tiny backstreet. It actually wasn’t a romantic place at all and she had difficulty to catch her breath after the run, feeling her illness, but everything around them felt so wonderfully isolated from the main street they had just walked on, that she couldn’t pay attention to her difficulty to breathe. Once they had stumbled into the back of the street, he quickly turned around for a second, probably to make sure they were alone. Then he took her face into his hands and pulled her towards him, pressing his lips against hers in what felt like blind passion. At first she was almost in shock, accidently swallowed the cough drop, thinking she might suffocate. But then her hesitation ended abruptly as she jumped right into the kiss as if she had waited for nothing else the entire day. Right now it seemed that they hadn’t kissed for centuries even though it had only been a couple of hours. And yet again it felt sensational, hot and gentle and wild and forbidden and right and she never wanted it to end. When they parted, his forehead was leaning against hers, their eyes buried into each other. They were breathing heavily, smiling. Both were lost in their feelings for a while, just admiring the other and what they felt.   
She decided that even if this ended nowhere, which she was still half sure it would, she would always remember how he kissed. It was so manly and hard in moments and then it was perfectly gentle and careful in others, discovering every centimeter of her mouth as if he were a blind person trying to take in the majesty of an artwork with his hands. Yet it seemed like they were constantly communicating, with touches, with moans and with the movements of their tongues and lips. It was a give and a take in complete unison. Part of her was convinced that they were forever exchanging some more of themselves with every time they kissed. Part of her felt like that part was lost in a romance novel and that she should get a grip, because this was all bullshit. But just when this part spoke too loudly, Rob’s voice drowned it out. 

“What have we done, Flo?” he asked, almost shyly, stroking her face with the back of his hand.   
She wanted to speak, to answer him but instead of screaming out that they had done something she wanted so badly it was eating her and that she fucking loved him, she simply placed her lips on his again, hoping it would deliver the message. She tried to caress not only his mouth but his body, touching him wherever she thought appropriate in this place. Somehow she knew that all she was delivering was her body’s message, not her soul’s but she was too overwhelmed to put anything she was feeling into words, not now. Suddenly he pulled away.   
“No, I am serious. What are we doing?” She sighed, held her breath. He wanted an answer, right now. And she didn’t want to talk. But she had to or she would fuck it up, like she had many times.   
“We…I…I love you” She said, her voice almost non-existent and just when these words had left her mouth she hoped he hadn’t heard it. She hadn’t wanted to say it, she felt it was too soon or too late. Or that it wasn’t enough, that it didn’t explain everything.   
His reaction, a gentle smile and a concerned sigh, let her knew he had understood her words perfectly. “I know” he said and she didn’t know what to make of it. Just when she wanted to stammer another sentence he took her hand again and slowly guided her out of the street. Flo was completely puzzled but followed him without complaining because she didn’t know what else to do but disappear and she couldn’t do that. 

Once they had reached the main street, she heard a familiar voice.


End file.
